Hope ends in death. That thought tinges every bar of Benjamin Britten’s Death in Venice (1973), in which an ageing writer, Gustav von Aschenbach, has impossible desires for a beautiful boy to whom he never speaks. Fantasies breed like weevils in his soul. As Venice succumbs to an outbreak of cholera, he pictures himself and the boy being lone survivors. Still yearning, still chasing his lost youth, now with hair dyed and cheeks rouged, Aschenbach dies. (Given the work’s title I will risk the spoiler.)
With its 17 rapidly changing scenes, large cast and virtuosic orchestra, the opera – its subject matter also famous from Visconti’s 1971 film – poses challenges in the theatre. Much was riding on Welsh National Opera’s first production of the work, directed by Olivia Fuchs, conducted by Leo Hussain, in a collaboration with the Cardiff-based NoFit State circus company. Collectively and individually, they have triumphed. At a time of crisis and scrutiny for UK opera, this stands as an exemplar.
