Scottish Opera – Britten’s Albert Herring ★★★★

The plot now opens out to include the rest of the community – its bored youth, its randy local shop assistants (Sid and Nancy) and, critically, Albert Herring, the greengrocer’s assistant. Consistently described as rather ‘simple’, Albert is deemed innocent enough (for which read naïve and inexperienced) to be just the pure-as-pure representative the community festivities need. Albert protests but his mother, eager to get her hands on the £25 prize that goes with the position, pushes him into the May King role.

All is well until Sid and Nancy conspire to spike Albert’s lemonade at the May Day feast. Their action, less out of malice than a desire to loosen the poor boy up, has unintended consequences. Albert goes AWOL and the whole community fears him dead, but (spoiler alert – this is a comedy, remember) when the wayward May King returns home after a night on the town the offended town worthies turn their back on him while Albert decides to enjoy his new-found freedom from tight-laced moral judgement.

This is a delightful production that fully matches the wit of Eric Crozier’s libretto and the kaleidoscope of musical styles Britten harnesses to characterize each group and individual. Daisy Evans’ impish direction matches Britten toe to toe, with broad individual characterisations, some delightfully-choreographed moments when the town worthies move as one, and touching depths of emotion, not least from Chloe Harris’s Nancy as she realises her prank may have had tragic consequences.

The cast draws together the highly experienced (Bullock and, as the mayor, the larger-than-life Jamie MacDougall) with a number of Scottish Opera Emerging Artists – notable among them Jowle, vocally and physically in tune with Britten’s nod to Gilbert and Sullivan, and Kira Kaplan as Miss Wordsworth, a self-assured flame to the vicar’s colourful moth.

As Florence, Jane Monari has the tricky task of setting the opera’s tone. She was a little underpowered in the opening scenes, though who wouldn’t seem so alongside Bullock? Likewise, as Albert, Glen Cunningham takes time to make his presence felt. He appears, first, more petulant and frustrated than naïve, so that when he eventually embraces his wild side and puts Lady Billows in her place (and here Cunningham’s vocal agility is completely captivating), we have to wonder whether he was never in fact so innocent, but has been playing the town worthies all along.

The decision for the village hall to multi-task as Albert’s shop and, later, Mrs Herring’s house, made clever use of a relatively small playing space but was a little confusing (a jumble sale in the greengrocer’s? unexpected references to Mrs H’s bedroom upstairs?). Nor does the updating of characters and costumes to unspecific but relatively recent times entirely pay off. The town’s young people are even less innocent than Albert, playing instead to the caricature of ‘the youth of today’, and the suggestion that Albert is tied to his mother’s apron strings is lost to Christine Sjölander’s leggings, eye shadow, and designs on the upright constable.

Yet, by blurring the lines, as this production does, between socially conservative ‘traditional, family values’ and a very human desire for truthful self-expression, what Evans and her players successfully remind us is that there is always more to individuals than first appearances. The worm will turn, the unruly youth will show empathy, the bobby will be caught with his trousers down – and even Lady Billows will lace her tea with a little something when she thinks no-one is looking.