It was, naturally, excellent. The central performance - Alan Oke as Aschenbach - is just marvellous and the supporting cast of singers, dancers and blokes walking about the stage pretending to be gondoliers are all equally good. I wasn't familiar with the music before, but was very taken with the louder instrumental passages. Some of the percussion makes one think of rock drumming, which given that the piece dates to 1973 might be more than just my complete musical ignorance.
And what of the story? I read Mann's novella a lifetime ago and don't recall ever seeing the Visconti film so it was fresh(ish) to me. I think the word is 'dodgy'. Mann was, I think, writing about the obsession rather than the nature of its object and perhaps we should accept it on those terms. There is an interesting overlap with the subject matter of Peter Grimes, but the world doesn't need cod psychology from me about Britten. The reference material suggests that Mann either intended a number of allusions to Greek mythology, or possibly he was writing about Mahler, or possibly both or neither. I'm not sure I saw any of that in it, but I managed to enjoy it nonetheless.
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| Julian Rhind-Tutt and Mark Heap in 'Green Wing' |
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