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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
A brilliant cast bringing the characters of Loxford wonderfully to life. Excellent witty singing and playing. Comes with a booklet including the full libretto. A Naxos reissue of the Collins Classics 1997 release. Shouldn't be missed.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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3 reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Albert the Good!
28 Mar 2003
Format:Audio CD
This is a budget-priced reissue on Naxos of the performance of 'Albert Herring' previously available from the now-defunct Collins Classics, originally issued in 1997. It features a stellar cast including Josephine Barstow who has owned the role of Lady Billows for perhaps twenty years, Felicity Palmer as the redoubtable Florence Pike, silvery-voiced Susan Gritton as Miss Wordsworth, Robert Lloyd as a lovably inarticulate Superintendent Budd, and Della Jones as Albert's mother, Mrs Herring. The young lovers, Sid and Nancy, are expertly sung and acted by Gerald Finley and Ann Taylor. Perhaps most important of all, Christopher Gillett is a youthful-sounding and increasingly rebellious Albert.
I have known and loved this opera ever since the original recording with Britten conducting and Peter Pears as a somewhat superannuated Albert. Obviously that set, which is still available, has its virtues. I have also seen three productions, including one at Covent Garden that was superb at least partly because the cast had been drilled in East Suffolk accents that had the British audience in stitches. I have not heard the recent recording on Chandos conducted by Richard Hickox.
This recording is a real treasure. Even though the Naxos reissue does not include a libretto - as is customary with most of their opera releases - the diction of most of the singers is exemplary and one has little difficulty understanding the witty dialog written by one of Britten's favorite and most skillful librettists, Eric Crozier. The pacing by Britten specialist Steuart Bedford is geared to the comedy inherent in the libretto; it tends to move right along except for the obvious moments of repose, as in the threnody for the presumed-dead Albert in the last act, or for Albert's big monolog, 'Albert the Good,' in the second act.
There are some who lambaste 'Albert Herring,' Britten's only full-length comedy, as too provincial, too trivial in subject to rank as one of his best operas, but I strongly disagree. And apparently opera-goers disagree, too; 'Herring' is one of Britten's most often produced operas both because it is fairly easy to mount, has a orchestra of only 13 players, and is almost always well-received by the run of opera-goers, many of whom come to the theater thinking it will be 'one of those awful modern things' and come away charmed and delighted.
Heartily recommended.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Delightful
22 Dec 2003
Format:Audio CD
This charming opera is an ironic look at social repression and innocence. Based on a Guy de Maupassant story, Albert Herring is the story of a simple village boy who breaks out of the constraints imposed by his controlling mother and the village elders. The libretto is written with a gently ironic plot and witty dialogue. The music is both lovely and clever. Britten assigns each major character music consonant with his or her character and there is some really impressive ensemble singing. The quality of this performance is excellent. The individual singers are all excellent and the ensemble singing is first rate. A real must for anyone who likes Britten.
1 of 3 people found the following review helpful
First-rate, bargain-priced "Herring"
14 May 2005
Format:Audio CD
This is about as good a recording of Britten's charming and amusing "Albert Herring" as we are ever likely to find. The conductor, cast and orchestra (such as it is) are all very fine and perfectly suited to the needs of the piece. The sound reproduction is fully up to contemporary digital standards.
Benjamin Britten purposely set out to create a lightweight comedy opera. He succeeded quite nicely. Overall, "Albert Herring" makes demands on its performers about equal to those of Willson's "The Music Man." It, of course, lacks the strength, wit and brilliance of the American masterpiece, but who could seriously expect such things from Britten?
Benjamin Britten purposely set out to create a lightweight comedy opera. He succeeded quite nicely. Overall, "Albert Herring" makes demands on its performers about equal to those of Willson's "The Music Man." It, of course, lacks the strength, wit and brilliance of the American masterpiece, but who could seriously expect such things from Britten?
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