Vintage opera productions are like bottles of wine. They either mature very well, or they don't. Glyndebourne's production of Albert Herring dates back to 1985, when it was directed by Peter Hall, and designed by John Gunter. Uncorked for this year's Glyndebourne on Tour season, and decanted by revival director James Robert Carson, from the outset there is no doubt that this production has survived very well.
Gunter's sets atmospherically evoke an age when English towns were full of local shops, not chain stores whose standard facades make every high street look identical. Among the shops in the small market town of Loxford is H.A.Herring, greengrocer. Behind the counter is young Albert, very much under his mother's thumb and, some would say, not terribly bright. It's also the era of the Urban District Council, ruled over by a self-important mayor (Adrian Thompson), an ineffectual, dithering vicar (splendidly caught by Robert Davies), and above all, by the imperious Lady Billows (Miranda Keys), attended by her almost equally imperious housekeeper (Susan Gorton, who is the spitting image of Mrs Bridges in Upstairs Downstairs). But the UDC has a problem: no Loxford girl is considered to have sufficiently high moral standards to be this year's May Queen. It'll have to be a May King, and Albert fits the bill precisely.
Director Carson never forgets that Albert Herring was labelled a comic opera by its composer, Benjamin Britten. Its underlying theme of sexual repression, that maybe the opera is even a coming-out parable, is left to speak for itself: no artificial emphasis is added to a tale set in an altogether more innocent age. As Albert himself, Robert Murray would be very difficult to beat - his voice is just right, his face a picture of embarrassment as he attends his coronation. Characterful conducting (Rory Macdonald) and orchestral playing add to that rare phenomenon, an operatic production where every different element fits together.
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