Birmingham Opera Company has always challenged its audiences. Finding the venue is a first hurdle. When knowledge of Birmingham’s repurposed factories, skating rinks, ballrooms and leisure centres is sketchy, the only proof of arrival is the equally uncertain group huddled outside a shuttered building in an empty street. Minutes before start time, doors are flung open on to a bright hub of activity. Even the most shy, leave-me-alone visitor is pulled into proceedings.
Their latest production was The Decision (Die Massnahme), the 1930 agitprop cantata by Bertolt Brecht (text and lyrics) and Hanns Eisler (music), in the standard translation by John Willett. Cast members, kitted head to toe in red, thrust red baseball caps or scarves into our hands, as well as biscuits and drinks. Join the party, was the message, the wordplay immediately evident. Brecht and Eisler’s short drama – propulsive, episodic, wearyingly didactic – explores how the actions of an individual can threaten the collective and lead to violence. Four agitators kill a young comrade, then defend their deed. The scale is modest: one singer/speaker (the versatile Wendy Dawn Thompson), three actors, small orchestra and a chorus – of any size – which has to sing or recite the rousing songs that shape the drama.
Founded in 1987, this radical company has had to regroup after the death in 2021 of Graham Vick, its prime mover. The Decision felt more cautious than anything Vick would have risked, but the commitment of the cast – and the confirmation that a new, if embryonic, post-Vick tradition is emerging – is welcome news. Directed by Anthony Almeida (who made his mark with last year’s Mavra-Pierrot lunaire double bill at the Royal Opera’s Linbury theatre), designed by Claudia Fragoso, the action was strong and coherent. Choruses burst with fervour, words not always audible but exuberance infectious.
The band, a mix of professionals, CBSO Youth Orchestra members and players from Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, played with panache. BOC’s music director, Alpesh Chauhan, kept all his forces under expert control. Brecht’s “learning play” is full of noisy exhortations about the proletarian masses, annihilation, unemployment, misery. A work of its time, soon censored in 1930s Germany, it resounded, in broad terms, across the decades. A discreet notice on the wall read: “If you have been affected by any of the issues raised, please speak to the box office team for support.” Whether real or ironic, I couldn’t say.
The impressive integration of Birmingham’s musical life characterised other music-making there last week. Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius, a setting of words by John Henry Newman, was premiered in Birmingham in 1900, since when this majestic work has passed through generations of choral singers in the locality (as well, conspicuously, as further afield: you could have heard it in Vienna on the same night last week, for example). Every performance draws a dedicated crowd. Symphony Hall was full for the estimated 100th Gerontius since 1945 (when verified records began).
Ryan Wigglesworth, jumping in at a few days’ notice to cover for an indisposed Andrew Davis, made a dazzling debut conducting the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in the work. He appeared to have every note, every choral or orchestral entry committed to mind if not memory, and plumbed the work’s rich meanings, sacred and secular. With the hall’s acoustic doors open, adding to the hall’s reverberation, the large forces sounded at once transparent and unified. The CBSO Chorus – all 143, I am reliably informed – trained by Julian Wilkins, mustered strength, shade and nuance.
Mezzo-soprano Alice Coote remains the Angel of choice, affecting, comforting. Ashley Riches was resplendent as the Priest. You only wished Elgar had given the bass-baritone more to sing. Brenden Gunnell sang the dying Gerontius with feeling but never excess, his heldentenor voice ringing and clear. He is more than ordinarily familiar to audiences here: in 2019 he stripped down to underpants and socks as a brilliant Sergei in Birmingham Opera Company’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk.
The next day, members of the orchestra played chamber music at the CBSO Centre, part of the Osborn Chamber Music Programme: in addition to a springy Haydn quartet, we heard – a first outing for this ensemble – works for double bass quartet. Ignorant I may be, but this combination was a first for me. I was spellbound by the colours and virtuosity. After, retired members of the CBSO bass section, out to support their old colleagues, stayed behind and swapped jokes with current players: many threads stretching back.
In September – another story for another time – the Shireland CBSO Academy takes its first pupils in a new building in Sandwell, West Bromwich. Every child will have access to music. Going regularly to Symphony Hall will be a given. This precious endeavour, planting the seeds of Birmingham’s musical future, is one to watch.
Hours after I wrote the above, news came of the disbanding of the BBC Singers, together with 20% cuts among the BBC orchestras. (Wiggleworth is chief conductor of the BBC Scottish, Chauhan associate conductor with the same ensemble.) The spin – no other way to describe the announcement – was that a new strategy would emphasise “quality, agility and impact”. These are precise terms to describe the 20-strong Singers: vocal athletes, versatile and adventurous. They programmed female composers and conductors long before the rest of the BBC had noticed their existence; scarcely an exaggeration.
To name a few international stars who have come through the choir’s ranks: Sarah Connolly, David Butt Philip, Brindley Sherratt, Roderick Williams (who is also the current composer-in-residence). Amid the outcry on social media, and the launch of a petition, I liked the tweet by Butt Philip: “For ‘flexible/adaptable/agile’ read smaller/cheaper/less ambitious.” We can no longer look to the BBC as the UK’s crucible of music. It has triggered its own destruction, making a wasteland of a once culturally fertile terrain. Endeavours such as those in Birmingham are more vital now than ever.
Star ratings (out of five)
The Decision ★★★★
The Dream of Gerontius ★★★★★
Soloists of the CBSO ★★★★
