Death in Venice – review

Britten's final opera can seem a one-man show. The ageing writer Aschenbach is on stage almost throughout, has the lion's share of the singing and, in his reflections on art, is so clearly the voice of the ailing Britten that he cannot avoid being the focus of attention. Yet the glory of this unmissable ENO revival is that the honours are so obviously shared, and not even John Graham-Hall's remarkable Aschenbach manages to eclipse Edward Gardner's exemplary conducting, let alone Deborah Warner's compelling staging – worth the price of admission alone.

Warner has returned to stage her 2007 production, with Tom Pye's economical but fluid designs and Jean Kalman's atmospheric lighting combining to create an ever-changing set of memorable images, never more so than in the gondola scenes, for which Britten writes such simple yet sinister music. Kim Brandstrup's varied choreography, which centres on Sam Zaldivar's enigmatic Tadzio and gives the scenes on the beach their energy, is integral to the fluency of the whole conception, and Chloe Obolensky's belle époque costumes are pitch perfect without being overdone.

In an opera that is full of vignettes all deftly handled by Warner, Anna Dennis's strawberry seller and, in particular, Marcus Farnsworth's darkly menacing English clerk stand out. Tim Mead sings with honeyed allure as the Voice of Apollo, while Andrew Shore makes a wonderfully practised impact with each of his seven, highly distinctive character roles. Though there are no surtitles, one doesn't miss much.

In the end, Aschenbach obviously matters most. Some guardians of the Britten flame will find Graham-Hall insufficiently forbidding when compared with more obviously intellectual Aschenbachs, such as Peter Pears and Robert Tear, or Ian Bostridge in the 2007 performances, and he cannot summon their austere vocalism either. But Graham-Hall inhabits the role more convincingly than any of them. Aschenbach's disintegration is harrowingly believable, and Graham-Hall manages to sing the role with a refreshing naturalness that goes with his always fine acting. Death in Venice emerges anew, without some of the archness to which Britten and his librettists were so susceptible, yet with its rich layers of meaning fully intact.