This is English National Opera’s first production shared between London and Greater Manchester – where the company has been obliged to plan to move its base, following Arts Council England’s diktat. The choice of a relatively small-scale opera – necessary in the circumstances – means it was never going to be the kind of show to announce the new era with a bang. Albert Herring is Britten’s 1947 work based on a slender 19th-century French story about a mummy’s boy suddenly finding freedom calls for only a small orchestra and no chorus, so the company won’t be heading en masse to Salford next week. It’s regular fare at music colleges thanks to its large and even cast, but this staging, surprisingly, is an ENO first.
Billing Antony McDonald’s production as a semi-staging sells it short. The scenery is simple enough – Albert’s stifling Suffolk village is conjured by a couple of cork-boarded walls, handily labelled to indicate whose shop, parlour or hall we’re in now. The period, judging by Sid’s duck’s arse haircut and Nancy’s new look skirt, is the 1950s – postwar, but with a bit of a Dad’s Army feel thanks to Emma Bell’s portrayal of Lady Billows as a khaki-clad tyrant, one part Captain Mainwaring to three parts Miss Trunchbull.
To some extent a sitcom feel suits the story, in which self-appointed moral guardian Lady B attempts to elect a virtuous village May Queen only to find that all the local girls have disqualified themselves, and the only option is mild-mannered shop-boy Albert – who promptly gets his drink spiked, takes his prize money and goes off on an almighty bender. McDonald adds an under-developed conceit that we’re a studio audience. A stage manager sits at a desk, ready to whip out a placard calling for audience applause, but also to provide the sound effects – mostly the shop-door bell, but there’s a nice moment when Albert is drunk in charge of a gas lamp. It’s not a laugh a minute, and the flowing, sometimes witty musical performance conducted by Daniel Cohen can’t disguise the fact that Britten is taking a long time to tell a short story.
But belly laughs are not what Britten was going for: as ever, he was more interested in hypocritical humanity, and his chequered cast give finely drawn performances across the board – from Mark Le Brocq’s mayor, doing a clandestine trade in silk stockings, to Eddie Wade’s vicar and scoutmaster, pursuing children with a bag of sweets, to the children themselves, played – on opening night – with scene-stealing character by the sopranos Abigail Sinclair and Natasha Oldbury and the treble Henry Karp. Dan D’Souza and Anna Elizabeth Cooper hold the stage as Sid and Nancy, and Caspar Singh is an engaging Albert, his tenor airy and sweet, if a bit cathedral choir. Tall and initially bumbling, he grows into his presence on stage as we watch. ENO’s Salford era is starting with a solid, enjoyable show: not a bang, but no whimper either.
• Repeated on 16 October, then at the Lowry, Salford, 21 and 22 October.
• This article was amended on 14 October 2025 to correct the name of the treble who was singing on opening night.
