Customer Reviews

Britten: Owen Wingrave; Six Hölderlin fragments; The Poet's Echo

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Owen Wingrave seems to be the poor relation among Britten's operas. It still has had only this one recording (+ a made-for-TV DVD from 2001) in the thirty years since it was first performed.

The opera was originally written for TV (and there is a fascinating interview with the composer about the writing of operas for television, made while Britten was working on Wingrave and available on his BBC Legends recording of the Mozart Requiem). But the composer was wily/practical enough to ensure that it worked equally well in the theatre and it has had several successful subsequent performances in opera houses around the world. Maybe this recording with the original cast is so definitive that others are put off.

It's a pity because Wingrave is one of Britten's most tightly organised theatre-pieces and deals with a subject (pacifism) that was very close to its composer's heart. There is the familiar motivic unity, common to most Britten operas. Central to this is the haunting theme sung in the ballad at the opening of Act 2. This permeates the whole score from the music for the house, Paramore, which is almost a character in its own right (`Surely he will listen to the house') to the ticking of the clock in the Coyles' bedroom after Owen has been locked in the small room. The opening of the opera is very arresting: the paintings of members of the military Wingrave family through the centuries each receive a musical portrait, each one increasing in Berg-like chromatic, expressionist intensity until we finally resolve harmonically on the living figure of Owen. Owen's big `Peace' aria in Act 2 is magical - surrounded by a halo of tuned percussion, of all Britten's gamelan inspired pieces this is the one that seems most fully assimilated into his own language.

These discs are performed by the singers for whom the parts were originally written - with one exception. The part of Lechmere was written for Robert Tear, but he decided to accept the part of Dov in Tippett's Knot Garden instead and suffered the Aldeburgh excommunication as a result. Otherwise, all the roles fit their performers like the proverbial gloves. Maybe Kate is a bit of a `Miss' in character terms for Janet Baker, but she sings it magnificently. Ben Luxon makes a warmly human and sympathetic Owen. Jennifer Vyvyan. John Shirley-Quirk, Heather Harper and, of course, Peter Pears are all vivid in characterisation, focused on the text and wonderfully sung. Sylvia Fisher produces another of her fearsome termagants to set beside Lady Billows and Gloriana. And Britten conducts his own score as sensitively and authoritatively as always. The fill-ups make strange bed-fellows for the opera - a German and a Russian song-cycle - but they are both worth exploring and are well performed. The DVD with an excellent Owen in Gerald Finley is worth a try, but this set is very much the definitive (and currently the only) recording.

I can't add much to the two previous reviews except to note that 'Owen Wingrave" was a notable failure when it was premiered on the BBC in 1971, just as Stravinsky's 'The Flood" had been on CBS the decade previously. In part both works are too demanding harmonically; they share a quasi-serial idiom that is light-years beyond a television audience. But Britten had hoped, I think, to reproduce the success of his "Turn of the Screw," another chamber opera adapted from a Henry James ghost story. In that instance, we see and hear the ghost of Quint, but in "Owen Wingrave" the passive role played by a row of ancentral portraits (shades of "Ruddigore") lacks dramatic impact.

It was also futile of Britten to try to portray a pacifist as braver than a warrior, because by its nature pacifism is inward, a matter of conscience. There's a lot of emoting about war and peace on Owen's part but little drama, and the climax, his death "without a wound" in a locked room, may work as a fictional device whose believability can be controlled by James's prose. As a stark event on stage, however, it's a little ridiculous. (Since Owen's death is a psychological symbol, I could be proved wrong by the right surrealist-symbolist production.) Britten suffered for his conscientious objection during WW II, but I'm not sure if Owen feels as noble to us as he does to the composer -- I find him a mudle between a real person and a ghost-story contraption.

To fight against these weaknesses, we get brilliant singing and vocal acting from the cream of British singers at the time, all of whom were closely associated with Britten. He did them proud with every signature role he wrote for them, and as music per se, there's much to marvel at. Unfortunately, opera isn't music per se, and I foresee "Owen Wingrave" being given a new staging only sporadically, as in the past. You hve to embrace the music before the plot can be swallowed whole.

Note: The only economical way to buy this opera in the composer's definitive performance is to buy Decca's second box set of Britten's complete operas or to download it, as I did.

This is a historic recording of one of the most terrific opera of all history. Conducted by the composer, and performed by English Chamber Orchestra. The recording is not too old, it is 1970 recording, and it is one of the last recording of Britten.

This opera is one of the Britten's last works. In this operai Britten's musical language is getting more heavy, realist. Also, this is an television opera, and it was commisioned and premiered by BBC Television. But today, it is performing on an opera house, too.

This opera based on a story of post-romantic English writer Henry James. And, this is a ghost-opera! Already, Henry James is a famous writer with his ghost stories, and it is one of his most fantastic stories. The opera is not too long, about 1h. 30m.. Scored for a small ensemble and eight soloists.

It is a story of a young man, who is a very intelligent soldier actually, but he doesn't love wars, soldier's life. In other words: he is a very pacifist man. Actually, he is a member of a famous family, who all of them soldiers since nearly 300 years ago!. So, he is now breaking these links. But, (his mother and father were dead on war) his grandmother (Jane), grandfather (Sir Philip), his teacher Spencer Coyle and his class-mate Lechmere are very angrly about his "folly"... And then, his theacher S. Coyle decided send Owen to Paramore, which the house of Wingraves. Coyle, thinks that, he will may be change his idea about war, by the way of his relatives. In this house, there are three more persons: Miss Coyle, the wife of Spencer, Miss Julian and his daughter Kate Julian. They are very-close-family-friends of Wingraves, and they are admirer of wars and soldiering, too!

(Also, there is a legend about the Paramore house. In this house, there is a haunted room, which in this room, The General Old Colonel Wingrave (who lived nearly 100 years ago) was dead. In that room, he was killed his boy, because of there is a quarrel between this man and boy. So, Old Colonel Wingrave angrly killed his boy and then he hide the dead body. The people, was not know about the boy how killed. But later, he was understand that he could not bear his pain about the dead boy and he was dead with a heart disease, in that room. Somebody, says that, The General Old Colonel Wingrave comes this room, in these days!!)

And then, in the evening of the day S. Coyle, Lechmere and Owen arrives this house. After the dinner, there is a dialog between Owen and Kate Julian, who aged 18, and the lover of Lechmere, because she loves the soldier and heros, too! So, she doesn't loves Owen. And Kate says that, Owen can not sleep in the haunted room! But, at the end of this quarrel, Owen says that, he can do that, and so, says to Kate "Lock me to it!". And, she locks him! But later, at midnight, there are some screams, which heard in the all house. So after, all people of house came to this haunted room, they discover the dead body of Owen Wingrave, who dead with the position as like a hero dead on battlefield!!!

Britten's opera about this terrific story is amazing and spine-chilling. I like especially these movements:

Prelude (the music of crisis, which heard in alltime of opera, when there is a crisis-scene)
Act One: The First Scene - The Dialog between S. Coyle, Lecmere and Owen
The Ballad of Narattor (who tells the story about the haunting room)
Act Two: the dialog between Kate and Owen
The Last Secene (of course!)

And the performers are excellent. Peter Pears (as usually, already he is the lover of Britten, as you know!) is very good on Sir Philip role and as Narattor. As you know, in the all Britten operas, there are important tenor roles, including Peter Grimes, all of them dedicated to Pears. Owen Wingrave role sung by very succesful baritone, Benjamin Luxon. At the role of Spencer Coyle, another legendary performer, John Shirley Quirk. Britten already admire him, not only his voice, but with his acting, theatral intelligent. Heather Harper (Miss Coyle), is a very good Britten performer and she is succesful as Ellen Orford role at Peter Grimes, too (with Colin Davis, released on Philips). Sylvia Fisher, portraited a very good Jane Wingrave. She is a very angry character, like Sir Phiip. And Janet Baker, sung Kate Julian role very good, especially in the last scene.

There are two more legendary recordings: 6 Holderlin Fragments, sung by Peter Pears ,accompanied by Britten, again. And, The Poet's Echo, based on Pushkin's poems, written in original language. Performed by soprano Galina Vishnevskaya (the wife of Rostropovich) and M. Rostropovich! Also, this song cycle dedicated to they.

This is an essential recording. It has a thick booklet, which includes very detailed synopsis and librettos of all works .

Highly recommended.