Opera North's Death in Venice is another winner for the company in Britten's centenary year, originally directed by Yoshi Oida. Alan Oke is a successful, anguished Aschenbach.
Professional performances of English operas are rare – they always have been – and it is presumably the 60th anniversary of The Pilgrim’s Progress specifically that has prompted this 2012 revival. It seems that without a significant anniversary to justify blowing the dust off a score, English operas tend to lie unheeded – the exception of course is Benjamin Britten.
