Benjamin Britten’s Curlew River was first seen in the 1964 Aldeburgh festival and, to mark the passage of 60 years, the current festival presented a new staging by Deborah Warner, complemented with an authentic performance of the Japanese Noh play, Sumidagawa, the original inspiration for what Britten called a church parable. Connecting the two made for a tour de force.
In Kanze Motomasa’s drama dating from the early 15th century, a noblewoman driven mad by the abduction of her 12-year-old son, takes the ferry across the Sumida River – the river flowing through present-day Toyko – to search for the boy, only to learn of his death and burial at a place where strangers have built a memorial in his honour.
On the Snape Maltings stage, Xanthe Gresham-Knight, representing the spirit of the river, told the story first, thus obviating the need for surtitles as the drama itself – intoned in the ancient Japanese text – was then played out. With the characters of the Madwoman and the Ferryman in traditional garb, behind them the nohkan flautist and two drummers and the jiutai chorus kneeling at the side, the slow ritualistic pace, words and their inflections within a narrow range of pitches iterated with disciplined fervour, was mesmerising though, being so different, never exactly easy. But the universality of grief needs no translation and the madwoman’s final consoling vision of her son was clearly felt.
Retaining the essence of this narrative, Britten and his librettist William Plomer nevertheless transposed its Buddhist element to a Christian one with the aura of a mystery play, their conceit being that a brotherhood of monks are enacting an ancient tale. This present setting was in Blythburgh church, near the Blyth River – renamed by Britten for the significance of curlews in the text – where in medieval times, those of Motomasa, a priory stood nearby. With the opening plainchant Te lucis ante terminum sung by the male chorus in solemn procession down the wooden walkway constructed in the aisle, towards the platform depicting the ferry, the dignity and control which had so moved Britten when seeing Sumidagawa in Tokyo was set in train here, but with a contemporary resonance.
Under the directorship of Audrey Hyland, the chamber musicians were most eloquent and the cast could hardly have been stronger. Willard White was the authoritative Abbot, with Duncan Rock as the Ferryman, a forceful presence whose mocking turns to sympathy as the Madwoman’s plight emerges, while Marcus Farnsworth was acutely sensitive as the Traveller, his compassion helping define the overall emotional trajectory.
For Ian Bostridge, fresh from a run of performances of Schubert’s Winterreise, this was a deeper foray into the torment of loss, his Madwoman wearing a tattered dress and a man’s jacket, clutching a quilt, evidence of the year-long quest. He conveyed vividly the mother’s pain, his tenor voice these days altogether fuller-bodied, ringing out through the church and incredibly affecting. Britten’s ending brings redemption as the spirit of the child blesses his mother, miraculously restoring her sanity. This was certainly an evening to reinforce the view that Curlew River itself constitutes a minor musical miracle.
• This production was televised for future broadcast
