William Havergal Brian (1876-1972)
The Cenci (1951-52)
Helen Field (soprano) – Beatrice Cenci
David Wilson-Johnson (baritone) – Count Cenci
Ingveldur Ýr Jónsdóttir (contralto) – Lucretia
Stuart Kale (tenor) – Cardinal Camillo/An Officer
Justin Lavender (tenor) – Orsino/Bernardo
The Millennium Sinfonia/James Kelleher
rec. live, 12 December 1997, Queen Elizabeth Hall, London
Full notes and libretto included
Toccata Classics TOCC0094 [2 CDs: 101]
On 12 December 1997 the Havergal Brian Society presented, as Martin Anderson tells us in his share of the booklet notes, a concert performance at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London of The Cenci, Brian’s 1951-52 opera. The performance was recorded and this is the result, leaving Turandot as his only (as yet) unperformed opera.
The text is taken from Shelley’s The Cenci, his verse drama in five acts written in the summer of 1819 which took the true-life events of 1599 as its focus, events in which Beatrice Cenci was executed for the murder of her father, the Count Cenci. The play’s themes of incest and parricide meant it was unperformed in Britain until 1922 though other countries proved less squeamish. Unlike his devoted word-for-word setting of the first two acts of Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound, which he set just before The Cenci, for the later work Brain was not as slavish. He cut much and introduced changes to Shelley’s text, enabling the work to be presented in this concert performance lasting 100 minutes.
Clearly, it’s not ideal to present an opera in a concert performance and the Havergal Brian Society took the position that it would be better to release the recording ‘warts and all’ as Martin Anderson puts it, than not to release it at all. The orchestra’s position in the soundstage can’t conceivably simulate a pit though the devoted Brian admirer will hardly mind that. What he might regret is the gabbled nature of the singers’ communication of the text. This is hardly their fault and remains a function – and direct consequence – of Brian’s word-setting.
The opera begins with a long symphonically-sized overture, a Preludio Tragico, that functions as a traditional, dramatic and brooding 14-minute introduction. Brian’s approach is to set Shelley’s text as heightened recitative. There are no arias, ariosos, duets or ensemble scenes and the only truly expressive moments occur toward the very end of the opera. For the orchestration he frequently utilises a familiar Brian use of a disparity between low brass and high winds. Much of this orchestral material is necessarily agitated and seemingly dislocated from the vocal declamation. If he had heard the opera, he might have revised his approach to the text as the urgency with which he sets it sometimes precludes clarity; one just can’t hear everything that’s set.
Helen Field, an excellent Janáček and Strauss exponent, takes the role of Beatrice and hers is a fierce assumption, the voice flaring powerfully. The strings predominate when she is on stage. Her father, the Count, is David Wilson-Johnson, implacable and resolute, as he negotiates his terse and difficult lines. Brian’s sense of characterisation includes moments of dissonant mockery, such as begins Scene 3, set in the Cenci Palace in Rome, when the brassy fanfares are curdled by those dissonances whilst Cenci and his nobles are accompanied by music of glowering intensity. The urgency of the declamatory orchestral writing here is clear, its uneasiness prefiguring Beatrice’s powerful defiance. The stridency of Brian’s verbal setting is at its most problematic in Scene 4, where it makes it very difficult to catch textual detail even though the general intensity of the musical setting certainly conveys the mood adequately.
The longest scene is No.5. It’s also the fastest moving where the killing of the count is conveyed (off-stage). The fanfare in this movement is wholly unlike the dissonant one in Scene 3; now it’s defiant. Beatrice’s vocal strength is an index of that personal defiance, and the opera briefly opens out to include a sliver of lyricism amidst the unremitting bleakness, which is at once its most conventional and yet also communicative moment. The second half of the opera is, in fact, more operatically conceived, in a conventional sense, than the first half – at least vocally, though I still wouldn’t suggest that it’s the opera for those who find verismo their cup of tea. Brian’s view is too gimlet-eyed for that, as he shows in the trial scene (Scene 7) where one feels orchestra and voices operate on separate tracks. Mock heroic brass underscores the appeal for clemency for Beatrice to the Pope – clearly a hopeless, foregone conclusion – and viewed by Brain, and Shelley, sarcastically.
The last scene takes place in the hall of the prison. Beatrice’s brother, Bernardo, sung by Justin Lavender, is again given tough responsibilities in his word-setting but acquits himself well. Toward the final three minutes, the mood briefly softens, for a final seven-bar moment of lyric acceptance and beauty for Beatrice. Thereafter she speaks her final lines accompanied by a solo oboe and timpani roll – the first antique-sounding whilst the timps foreshadow the imminence of her death.
Brianites will welcome this 1997 production and will want to salute the dedication of cast and orchestra and conductor, James Kelleher, who is responsible for much of its success. Toccata have produced two booklets – one of 60 pages that features multiple contributors on a range of themes that includes details of the cast. John Pickard’s chapter on the music is illuminating as is Kelleher’s own note whilst the details about Shelley’s text are not only of academic interest. The other booklet contains the 36-page libretto which includes Brian’s few additions to Shelley’s text as well as the text he excised – which is not reprinted but is represented by pairs of brackets.
This is a work of bleak power, set with dedication but imperfectly, given the problems of hearing the text at all times. Some will recoil at the remorseless nature of this recitative-like setting and, of course, there are plenty of listeners who simply don’t ‘get’ Brian or who feel there are better ways of spending one’s time than listening to his music. It’s hard to see how the work could really function more theatrically than it does here and that’s where this production makes its greatest claim on the dedicated listener. It allows one to hear what Brian intended.
Jonathan Woolf
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Other cast
Jeffery Carl (baritone) – Giacomo/Savella/1st Judge/2nd Judge
Nicholas Buxton (tenor) – Marzio/3rd Guest/A Cardinal
Devon Harrison (bass) – Olimpio/Colonna/A guest
Serena Kay (soprano) – 1st Guest/2nd guest
