[Debussy's The Fall of the House of Usher] was coupled with a complete treatment of the same subject by Gordon Getty under the title Usher House, here receiving its world première in a co-production with San Francisco Opera where it is scheduled to be staged next year. Getty, who has constructed his own libretto, made a valiant attempt to impose a more logical structure onto Poe’s original, furnishing some explanations for example onto the origins of the house itself (and incidentally explaining its collapse at the end) as well as past background on the characters. This involved the creation of two new characters: Doctor Primus, Madeline’s sinister physician who eventually is revealed as the incarnation of the original Usher: and Edgar Allen Poe himself, acting both as narrator as in the original story and also as a romantic interest in his relationship to Madeline. These additions and explanations worked well, but they also had a downside in the result that (as with the Debussy) there was rather too much text to be delivered as sort of recitative over the expressive orchestral backdrop. One longed for more lyrical expansion, but such moments were relatively rare; one also noticed that the English surtitles did not always agree with what the singers were delivering from the stage. Possibly the differences were the result of alterations during rehearsal, and one might tentatively suggest that some further amendment and pruning of the text might be beneficial without jeopardising the rationale behind the plot....

The filmed settings for the Debussy were even more spectacularly successful in the Getty. Careful thought had obviously gone into the selected scenes from Penrhyn Castle, and the video designer David Haneke displayed a real flair for reflecting the atmosphere of the score. The very opening, with the viewer drawn into a carriage approaching the Usher House, immediately grabbed the attention even before the music had started with the realism of the illusion conveyed. Indeed when the orchestra did enter, there was almost a suggestion of an atmospheric film score simply accompanying the visual images on stage. This however was only a fleeting misapprehension, as the music rapidly developed an independent character of its own in which the live characters blended almost seamlessly into the filmed background. This imaginative use of projections (echoing a suggestion made by John Culshaw in Ring Resounding as long ago as the 1960s) was a real revelation in showing just how successful the technique can be if it is done as well as this. One would now like to see such back projections used in other productions, especially those which portray nature in a manner which has seemed to become a closed book to so many modern directors. It was a far cry from David Pountney’s usual style, and it worked superbly. The eye and ear were constantly enchanted, in fact, and the score seemed to display a distinct progress from Getty’s earlier opera Plump Jack (which I reviewed on CD last year for this site) both in its sense of dramatic pacing and in the greater unity of the musical whole. Unlike Plump Jack, which was written in a piecemeal fashion over a number of years, Usher House progressed inexorably from its atmospheric opening to its overwhelming conclusion. One hopes that the production will soon find its way onto video (possibly during its run in San Francisco?) as both an enchantment in its own right and an example to others....

I should perhaps mention that this review is based on the second performance of the double bill (I was otherwise engaged two days earlier on the opening night – see my review for this site of the BBC National Chorus and Orchestra of Wales in the Brahms German Requiem). Unfortunately the double bill is only being given once more in the current WNO season, on 20 June in Birmingham. It deserves to be revived; the audience at this afternoon performance was substantial and enthusiastic.