Elegy for botched prospects

Not exactly what I wanted to see last night as I pedalled over Westminster Bridge on the way back from seeing Henze's Elegy for Young Lovers at the Young Vic. Still, as my godson said many years ago as we flew into Heathrow from Venice in 70mph winds, and passengers were vomiting into whatever they could lay their hands on, 'aren't the lights of London pretty?' And they were last night, if many may well be soon extinguished. Here, for instance, is the rainbow coalition of the Eye and the former County Hall on the other side of the bridge.


And it could be worse. If only there's still enough money to pay for a show of such staggering brilliance as Fiona Shaw's production of the Henze last night (all production shots are by Sarah Lee for ENO).


What visual beauty, what ensemble work and, ultimately, what a piece. I hedged my bets after the first act a bit as Henze's customary beauty of scoring - here for a very selective ensemble including mandolin, guitar and musical saw - delivered great sounds but not many ideas that could fix themselves in the mind. But by the devastating final act, there were quite a few that had. It's probably the first time I've been totally hooked by a Henze opera on stage: I do hope to see Der Junge Lord, of which there's a gripping film now on DVD, but Boulevard Solitude gave me a thick head, I can't remember the first thing about The Prince of Homburg and the world premiere of Das Verratene Meer, chiefly remarkable in that it got me to Berlin for the first time in the good old days of The Sunday Correspondent, only upped the tension in the last act. Anyway, this was one to set a good example to Ades and Turnage, both in last night's audience.

And it's surely one of the great opera librettos, by which of course I mean the wonderful structure as well as the text. By 1959 Auden and Kallman had of necessity set aside the rococo poetry of The Rake's Progress in favour of something pithier. If it were just, yawn, a bare symbolic treatment of the creative artist's selfishness, it wouldn't hold us spellbound for as long as it does. But Auden and Kallman make it especially fascinating by the rise and fall of fortunes. In Act 1, psychopathic poet Gregor Mittenhofer is dependent on the visions of widow Hilda Mack, walled up with him in an Austrian mountain inn, who's been waiting over the past 40 years for her husband to return from an expedition on the treacherous Hammerhorn. When his body finally emerges from the glacier, Hilda is transformed from a 20th century Lucia into a pragmatic lady, from fury to Eumenide. Mittenhofer's vampiric instincts transfer themselves to his young mistress Elisabeth's love affair with the son of his physician. It's no spoiler to say that he sends the lovers to their death both out of personal revenge and to fuel his 'Elegy for Young Lovers'.

Bit earnest? Not at all in this vivacious, purposeful production. Shaw gets superb performances from all six singers of her Cosi-like ensemble. I was utterly spellbound by the wonderful Lucy Schaufer as Mittenhofer's harrassed patroness and private secretary, Countess Carolina, who moves from realistic and often very funny stressy hyperactivity to haunted disgust. Here she is at one crux with the young lovers as sung by Kate Valentine and Robert Murray.


Essentially Schaufer's Lina changes places over the action with the initially pathetic, later hilariously forceful Hilda, a dazzling sing from Jennifer Rhys-Davies who can do the coloratura as well as the lyric-dramatic stuff. I wonder if Shaw intended parallels with screen immortal Marianne Sagebrecht, star of Adlon's Bagdad Cafe? Anyway, here's Rhys-Davies pictured centre with Stephen Kennedy in the speaking role of Alpine guide Josef Mauer.


The others come into focus more slowly - in Act Two, it's the turn of the exquisite Kate Valentine as mistress Elisabeth, given a haunting monologue as she's left wondering whether Mittenhofer will bless her departure with her new lover. In Act Three the lover, Robert Murray, also has his moment in a death scene of startling beauty. Auden and Kallman's genius is to have the young lovers imagine that they're an old couple who've been together for 40 years: what children, what affairs, might they have had?


At this point the backdrop of the ever-changing screen at the back of the stage reaches new visionary heights, most of them the creation of video artist Lynette Walworth. Shaw made her operatic debut with the similar visual originality of the Sibelius/Vaughan Williams double-bill at the Coli, and this equals that achievement.

I've also never seen Steven Page better: his rages at close quarters are truly terrifying, driven by razor-sharp playing from the brass under the superb Stefan Blunier.


The ending could be corny, but it's not: Henze, Shaw and the singers strike not one emotional false note. Our Fiona is making a bid to be up there for sheer focused energy with Richard Jones, whom she told Ed Seckerson she hugely admires for his 'metatexting'. This cries out to be filmed and recorded; but sadly it's not even to be heard on Radio 3. Do something quick, please, ENO.

Born to dance

First of the Bedlamites' 30th anniversary jaunts was organised by the bonhomous Andy Beale - a trip to the National to see his Less Well Known Brother Simon Russell in the irresistible Boucicault farce London Assurance. More of that in a moment. I should first report that SRB's biggest joy, when we trooped backstage to his Dennis Quilley Room, was a report from NYT ballet critic Alistair Macauley praising his fleetness of foot, declaring that his ballet steps would grace a full choreography, and that he hoped to see him as one of the Ugly Sisters in the Ashton Cinderella soon.

While, on the evidence of seeing the hard work put in by Wayne Sleep and Luke Heydon on Saturday afternoon, I think that might be beyond him unless he can afford a year off to train, I grant him superb nimbleness in the few steps, including a splendid entrechat, he claimed to know. It was clear from what he said to Giles Brandreth, apparently a pal, that he felt ready for new challenges. What more can he want? He's a superb music presenter, from the little I've seen, and one of my students was talking about 'the greatest living actor' when I entered the class a couple of weeks ago.

Anyway, great SRB certainly was. Here he is with Andy and Lord Harcourt Hartley's wig, another backstage shot from me in between Catherine Ashmore's production photos.


And the performance? Helpless laughter from a bewitched audience at every entrance, every pose and grimace, so that it was a bit tough on the other actors in the First Act when left alone. But the rest of the cast in Hytner's handsome production didn't let us down: there was a spirited juve lady, Michelle Terry, as the determined not-to-be bride-to-be, a class launch from Nick Sampson's valet Cool and two great tottering, wheezing entrances from the ineffable Richard Briers.


But of course the other star role is - wait for it, if you don't know - Lady Gay Spanker, a horsy joie-de-vivress in the sublime hands of Fiona Shaw, who even seems to have worked on an ever more resonant chest voice (apparently her singing is good, too, as those who saw her Mother Courage assure me).


What's the gist? Town meets country, Sir Harcourt can't outwit Lady Gay, young love triumphs. The plot fizzles a bit in the second half, but some of the language is Shakespeare worthy and if some of the gags feel as if they might have been added, they're fun: Sir Harcourt muses on how his wife ran off with his best friend - 'I still miss him' - and servant Pert (a witty Maggie Service) accuses the attorney Mark Meddle of hanging about 'like a stain looking for a sheet'. I'd happily sit through it all again, but I'd be lucky to find another ticket.

No real laughs to be had last night at the London premiere of Rufus Wainwright's earnest divafest Prima Donna; nor was it as bad as I'd feared. Read what I thought worked and what didn't in the Arts Desk review, which is being much 'hit'. Anyway, there's something about our boy wonder and bits of his score that I do find irresistibly touching. And there he was, canoodling with his lovely boyfriend, right in front of me, only an aisle between us. So how could I resist taking Rufus from behind?