Welsh National Opera’s collaboration with NoFitState circus in Benjamin Britten’s final opera has created a stunning spectacle. Based on Thomas Mann’s novella, the work makes huge demands on the tenor singing the role of Gustav von Aschenbach – heroically sung here by Mark Le Brocq – yet this is an opera that stands or falls on the casting of the beauteous vision who is Tadzio. He is the Polish boy held in increasingly obsessive thrall by Aschenbach, searching for blessed release from the pain of writer’s block. Tadzio is a non-speaking role normally given to a dancer, but director Olivia Fuchs here introduces a whole new spatial dimension in the form of the Belgian aerialist Antony César. It is indeed his supreme grace and athleticism that holds the whole audience in his thrall.
Taking the idea a step further, Fuchs makes Tadzio’s whole Polish family acrobats – Diana Salles the tightrope and aerialist mother – and there are several interventions that animate what are sometimes seen as the longueurs of Britten’s score. The sequences of aerial and circus skills bring an distinct element of Marcel Carné’s film Les Enfants du Paradis. This, together with the allusions to angels of light, is a counterbalance to the seven roles sung by baritone Roderick Williams, different manifestations of a single figure whose underlying sinister nature - his old gondolier the harbinger of death – make him more Aschenbach’s nemesis than alter ego. Williams’ characterisations are brilliant and agile, some more robustly projected vocally than others.
