Noah had all kinds of trouble with the ark. What about the beavers, who wanted to gnaw at the wood? The cats, who wanted to gnaw at the mice? Then there was the nervous moose requesting a swimming aid, the hyperventilating zebra, the tortoise who nearly missed the boat ... OK, so none of this is specified in the libretto of Britten’s Noye’s Fludde, but they are all nice touches in Lyndsey Turner’s production, which marks English National Opera’s first collaboration with the Theatre Royal Stratford East.
Six decades old, Britten’s hour-long work remains a shining example of what a community opera involving children can be. He wrote it for the kind of church or village hall space where the distinctions between audience and performer could be blurry, as they were when the mystery play from which he took his text was first performed on the streets of Chester. Yet it works in the chocolate-box intimacy of the Theatre Royal. When the lights go up and the audience is invited to join in the singing (far less cringeworthy than it sounds), their proximity to the stage means the fourth wall is well and truly broken.
The production strikes a balance between homespun and sophisticated, serious and light, ritual and performance. There are a host of performers, some professional, some students, but mostly local amateurs, including 60 children from two east London primary schools who play the animals with just the right amount of cuteness. Soutra Gilmour’s set design of cartoonish cardboard flats fits perfectly with the animal drawings worn by the children on their heads – these are by Oliver Jeffers, whose picture book The Way Back Home was turned into an opera for the ENO four years ago. Wayne McGregor gets a choreography credit for the Raven and the faithful Dove. From the young sons and daughters-in-law of baritone Marcus Farnsworth’s trusty Noah, to the actor Suzanne Bertish as the imperious God, there are winning performances all round. Conductor Martin Fitzpatrick holds the music together as irresistible optimism fills the drab, grey world with rainbow brightness.
• At Theatre Royal Stratford East, London, until 13 July.
