celebrating
liberation
Eric
Crozier (text, based on a story by Guy de Maupassant), Benjamin Britten
(composer) Albert Herring / the
performance I saw was at the LAOpera, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, March 11, 2012
Benjamin Britten's comic opera, Albert Herring, as most critics have noted, is a rather light
entertainment that, over the years, has been revealed to have darker and more
profound messages beneath it. The excellent recent production of the LA Opera
hints at a few of those more meaningful moments, but skim over some of the most
important implications.
On the surface Britten's fourth operatic
work reads a bit like a Ronald Firbank story or like other works of the British
dialogue fictions, filled with typological figures. Lady Billows (Janis Kelly
in the production I saw) is just what her title suggests, an elderly autocrat,
who literary "bellows" to all those about, demanding virginal girls
and normative behavior. Her housekeeper, Florence Pike (played by Ronnita
Nicole Miller) is a uppity slacker who keeps a sacred diary of all the village
of Loxford's goings on, including the misbehaviors of nearly every young girl
in town. Along with the head teacher, Miss Wordsworth (Stacey Tappan), the
Mayor, Mr. Gedge (Jonathan Michie), and the Police Superintendent Budd (Richard
Bernstein), these figures attempt to maintain the traditional moral
values—however they might be defined—for all Loxford figures, particularly the
feminine sex, whose virtuous model is celebrated each year in their choice for
May Queen.
The opera begins with the meeting of these important city figures,
attempting to decide upon which young woman they will bestow this year's award.
As they run through each of their lists, however, it becomes apparent from
Florence's diary that none of the village girls is above recrimination, even
though some crimes are no more important than where they wear the hems of their
dress. Others have stayed out all night in barns, run off with boyfriends, or
simply been gossiped about. In distress, the quintet struggles about their
inability to make a choice until one of their members suggests a May King, all
ultimately agreeing that the only choice can be Albert Herring, a woman shopkeeper's
son, who has been carefully obedient to his mother. There is also a sizeable
purse attached to the award, which pleases Albert's mother far more than he
when the group announce their choice.
At first Albert is seen as simply a do-gooder, with no personality
whatsoever. But by the second scene of Act I, we begin to see him question his
allegiance to obedience, and, comparing himself with the fun-loving and
sexually busy couple, Sid and Nancy, realizing that he has nothing to show for
remaining a mother's boy.
Putting Albert on display, the town leaders could care less about
Albert's feelings or any reality he might be experiencing within, dressing him
in white and awarding him an absurdly orange wreath, which he is forced to wear
throughout the luncheon. But Sid has other plans for Albert, with Nancy spiking
Albert's lemonade with rum, an event which begins a series of adventures for
our "hero" that ends, after another self-analysis of his life, with
Albert going off into the evening to discover the life he has never before
experienced.
Meanwhile, the village, having noted his absence, is in a tizzy about
his whereabouts, the hypocritical quintet of village elders meeting to lament
what appears is his death. When Albert does reappear at the very moment that
the others sing piously (and quite beautifully) about dying, he is shockingly
filthy, having spent the night in at least two pubs and, after being thrown out
of both, slept for some hours in the gutter. He has also been with two women
and (more mysteriously) with a man. The sexuality of those situations is not
quite established except for Albert's own admission that he has done everything
to which he admits "and worse," and that "it wasn't much
fun." The audience's imagination is important here, for how one defines
"worse" would lead us to perceive how deep his rebellion against the
Victorian notions of the community leaders has gone. Certainly he is no longer
in thrall to any of them, particularly to his mother, as he virtually tosses
the city leaders out of his shop so that he can get
on with his business. Whatever that business may now be is uncertain; but it is
clear that Albert has made a big transformation, as he rewards the children
candies and graciously hands a peach to Nancy.
Conductor James Conlon argues that the exact nature of his
transgressions must remain vague. And probably that was what Britten also
intended. But we must remember that, although he lived much of his life as an
open homosexual, for Britten it might have difficult to more thoroughly explore
the issue in small town life of 1947. Today,
I would have, at least, liked a little more of the possibility of Arthur
exploring something beyond heterosexual experiences. For that might even have
made him a kind of exceptional figure in Loxford history.
As it stands, Albert is simply a slow learner, a man who waited far too
long to come to terms with any sexuality. Perhaps if we understood it as an
truly exceptional sexual variance, we might be better able to explain Albert's
slow awakening instead of merely explaining him as a kind of village simpleton
or, as several characters describe him, not very bright. Let us hope at least
that after his night of revelry he does not remain as a greengrocer for the
rest of his life!
Los
Angeles, March 13, 2012
