Béatrice et Bénédict

by Hector Berlioz

seen by live streaming from Glyndebourne on 9 August 2016

This rarely performed opera devised by Berlioz from Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing forms part of the ubiquitous quartercentenary commemorations of the playwright's death. Directed by Laurent Pelly (who also designed the costumes) and conducted by Antonello Manacorda, with set designs by Barbara de Limburg, it features Stéphanie d'Oustrac as Béatrice, Paul Appleby as Bénédict, Sophie Karthaüser as Héro, Philippe Sly as Claudio, Lionel Lhote as Somarone, Katarina Bradić as Ursule and Frédéric Caton as Don Pedro.

The opera deals with only a small part of the play, omitting the entire Don John plot to discredit Hero, and thus the crisis caused by Claudio's rejection of her at the wedding. This renders Claudio even less significant as a personality, though Héro has a fine duet with her maid Ursule at the close of the first act concerning her approaching wedding, and the two join with Béatrice for an equally lyrical trio in the second act.

Much of the banter between Beatrice and Benedict in the play is also lost, though some of the most crucial (and enjoyable) lines are preserved. Both Béatrice and Bénédict have extended soliloquies on the matter of love and surrender, inspired by the play but allowing for more operatic display, but much of the sheer pleasure of their presence on stage in Much Ado is missing as the demands of the musical setting tend to flatten their personalities. Berlioz also introduces an extraneous character called Somarone, who is providing musical accompaniments to the wedding celebrations. He is a comically self-obsessed conductor/composer, giving Berlioz several opportunities for musical jokes and parodies (perhaps his function is loosely related to Dogberry's in the play, who unwittingly murders the English language).

In its own terms, this was an enjoyable production, very well sung and played. The setting was intriguing, a series of huge boxes and towers of cartons, referring both to wedding presents and to the notion that the two main characters do not wish to be boxed in by society's expectations. (After their weddings, the two couples disappear into two of the boxes with differing degrees of willingness). Everything is grey, including all the costumes and even the make-up, as if we were watching a black-and-white film. All the colour, as was pointed out in the interval interviews, is in the music; and indeed once the convention became familiar, it was easy to imagine that a riot of colour lay behind the silvery sheen, which might well have been overly distracting if given full rein.