Albert Herring ENO 2025 ©Genevieve Girling
In staging Albert Herring, the director and designer Antony McDonald offers us a semi-staged, pared-back affair: two cork-board-style flats, a tableau of Sussex-Suffolk village life lightly dusted with post-war austerity, and a stage-manager-cum-television-studio-figure to prompt applause and ring bells. The effect is both ingenious and, at times, frustratingly under-driven.
Musically, the evening was in good hands with Daniel Cohen steering the 14-piece ensemble through the sly turns of the score with precision and wit. The horn solo from Timothy Ellis and the little woodwind interlude (alto flute and bass clarinet especially) were quietly superb; Britten’s chamber writing emerged with clarity and colour despite the larger Coliseum space. The contrast of simplicity of forces and sophistication of detail served the work well.
On stage, British-Indian young tenor Caspar Singh made a commendable ENO debut as Albert. His voice is light, well-focused, and he carries the stage with a certain hesitant charm. Initially he was the mummy’s boy agricultural shop assistant but gradually emerged into something resembling autonomy. While his portrayal didn't quite lay bare the full psychological subtext of the role, it did satisfy the essential requirement of Albert’s awakening.
The supporting cast was equally strong. Emma Bell as Lady Billows dominates with military style swagger and a sufficiently shrill moralistic zeal. The children — sopranos, Abigail Sinclair and Natasha Oldbury and treble, Henry Karp — crackle with energy every time they take the stage. Mark Le Brocq’s Mayor Upfold – the silk-stocking dealmaker – injects sly comic relief with a resounding virile toned vocal tenor.
Yet, for all its virtues, the production occasionally felt short-changed by its own scale. A work as pointed, as cynical beneath its comedy, as Albert Herring deserves the intimacy of a smaller house; in the cavernous London Coliseum some of the humour and bite fell away into the ether. The meta theatrical device of the stage manager waving placards and counting off cues was clever, but here and there diverted attention from the story rather than amplifying it. The pace flagged at moments, and the sense of real farce never quite fully ignited. However, in terms of staging, McDonald’s decision to keep the set minimal is understandable, especially given the dual city (London/Manchester) demands on ENO, but it sometimes felt like austerity as aesthetic rather than necessity transformed into design choice. The visual and physical world needed a little more texture to bring the Suffolk village alive. Still, the lighting by Matthew Richardson and the ensemble playing and singing were fabulous.
On balance a production that offers more wins than losses. The casting, the musical leadership and the ensemble pull together for an engaging night of Britten in its less serious register — yet with underlying social sharpness still audible. For ENO, this may well mark a modest but meaningful step in their “twin-city” era. For the audience it was not the production you will write home about as ground-breaking, but certainly one worth seeing for the sheer pleasure of hearing Britten’s nimble chamber score, and for a cast that gives the material respect and character.
David Buchler, Opera Spy
