The Stage

Riders to the Sea

Published Friday 28 November 2008 at 11:30 by David Gutman

Planned to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the death of its composer, ENO’s Riders to the Sea reaches us now as a tribute to Richard Hickox, the conductor who tragically died earlier this week after supervising rehearsals. A doughty champion of Vaughan Williams, his broad, expressive pacing remains much in evidence.

By sticking close to J M Synge’s concentrated original, VW for once produces a viably theatrical vehicle, yet its very brevity and intimacy pose problems in such a large house.

Fiona Shaw and her team seek to open up the drama in unexpected ways. They begin with a preludial performance of Sibelius’ Luonnotar (Nature Spirit), dispatched quite magnificently in the original Finnish by Susan Gritton. A maternal Melisande in an upended boat she looks like something out of Klimt. Behind her, an ambitious video installation of watery images is equally ravishing. There follows the briefest scene-setting interlude, sound montage courtesy of John Woolrich, and we are into the main event, the particular claustrophobia of Synge’s Aran cottage kitchen lost in a symbolic topography of capsized boats and rocky outcroppings. One wonky ladder apart, the setting works well enough on the open stage. The score, seemingly reluctant to assert itself at the expense of text, keeps harmonic options open and words audible. Patricia Bardon brings authority and a genuine Irish accent to the pivotal role of Maurya, the bereaved mother. Making her ENO debut, the always eloquent Claire Booth is equally striking as Nora. Maurya has a premonition in which her dead son Michael is seen leading her one surviving son, Bartley, into the sea. Controversially, Shaw makes Michael a concrete stage presence impersonated by an actor, Oliver Kieran-Jones.

ENO music director Edward Gardner, stepping into the breach at short notice, and Shaw, whose introduction to the world of opera direction could scarcely have been more distressing, may yet have a hit on their hands.