Enoch Arden, streaming until Thur 1 April 2021 ***1/2

 

THEATRE /MUSIC THEATRE

Poetry by Alfred Lord Tennyson, music by Richard Strauss

By Brisbane Music Festival and Victorian Theatre Company

Streaming Wed 31 Mar & Thurs 1 April at 8pm AEDT (Melbourne/Sydney time)

Tickets; www.brismusicfestival.com

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars:***1/2

This review only published on this blog. kh

                                                       Matthew Connell

The epic tale of Enoch Arden by Alfred Lord Tennyson, with melodramatic music by Richard Strauss, is imbued with sweet melancholy until its final, heart breaking moments.

 

This is a tale of a loving, lost and shipwrecked husband whose selflessness allows his wife to live a contented life without him even after he is rescued and returns to his home. 

 

As children, Enoch Arden and his friend, Phillip both love Annie, but it is Enoch she chooses to marry when they grow to adulthood. Annie and Enoch have children and live happily until fortune turns against them. Enoch, in a desperate plan to provide for his family, goes to sea, but is marooned for more than a decade on an isolated island, unbeknown to his wife.

 

Phillip cares for Annie and her children in Enoch’s absence and finally, after a decade, proposes marriage to Annie. Then Enoch returns.

 

This streamed version, is a moving, unembellished, on screen reading by Matthew Connell with subtle and sensitive piano accompaniment by Alex Raineri, who is also on screen.

 

Tennyson’s evocative, lyrical language paints the poignant tale of the optimistic but ill-fated sailor, Enoch Arden, while Strauss’s music underscores the emotional landscape. The two performers share the screen with a visual design (Jak Scanlon) comprising images of rural landscape, seething oceans and inky, cloudlike designs.

 

Connell, wearing headphones, reads Tennyson’s words with his warm, lyrical and emotive voice, capturing the melancholy of the story and the winds of change in Enoch’s life. Connell’s youthful, almost Raphael-esque appearance – intense, blue eyes, softly curling hair, cherubic mouth – add to the eerie otherworldliness of the performance.

 

Although the visual design is inventive and often beautiful, at times it is over-wrought, such as when it depicts two hands wringing and clenching in despair.

 

Enoch Arden is a compelling 70 minutes of viewing which does justice to both Tennyson’s poetry and Strauss’s composition.

 

by  Kate Herbert 

                                                                                    Alex Raineri on piano