Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Albert Herring

Benjamin Britten's comic slice of country life proves an ideal choice for the conservatory setting.

A period-perfect Albert Herring from Francis Matthews for Buxton International Festival takes time to settle into its stride, but provides plenty of laughs along the way. 

With a combined age of 161 years, John Copley and Steuart Bedford certainly bring ample experience to Grange Festival's new production of Britten's Albert Herring. 

The laughs keep on coming in Liam Steel's glorious 1950s Albert Herring in an English village where pretensions rise as morals decay, while Nick Pritchard shines as our modest eponymous hero.

Excellent ensemble work makes for a compelling rendering of Britten's satirical chamber opera Albert Herring, with some impressive young tenor and baritone voices. 

If comedy is all about timing, then Oberlin Conservatory’s production of Albert Herring was a master class in getting laughs. In four performances last week, professor and stage director Jonathon Field ran his young cast through whipcrack pacing, propelled by a smart performance in the pit to bring antic life to Britten’s comic opera.

‘To lose one singer, Mr Terracini, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two, one of them in the title role, looks like … a disaster’. Such were the thoughts running through my head when the Artistic Director of Opera Australia made the pre-performance announcement.

“Community, exclusion, rejection and desire”, writes director Christopher Rolls about English Touring Opera’s production of Albert Herring. “Doesn’t sound like a recipe for an uproarious comedy does it? And the key thing about Herring is that it is very very funny.

After the success of Benjamin Britten’s opera The Rape of Lucretia, Britten and director/librettist Eric Crozier discussed future operatic projects. The composer wanted his next opera to be a comedy and insisted that it be set in England. When Crozier suggested adapting Guy de Maupassant’s La Rosier de Madame Husson, Britten knew he was on to something good. Indeed, it was an ideal choice.

Das Opernstudio der Bayerischen Staatsoper glänzt in Benjamn Brittens Albert Herring mit starken Sängern, doch die Inszenierung blieb dagegen eher schwach.