Paul Bunyan by Benjamin Britten, English Touring Opera, review

Rounding off last year’s triumphant Britten centenary come new productions of two minor dramatic works from either ends of his oeuvre: together they demonstrate his extraordinary ability to catch whatever ball was thrown at him.

Owen Wingrave was written for television in 1970, and it will return as the centrepiece of this summer’s Aldeburgh Festival; meanwhile English Touring Opera has plumped for Paul Bunyan, which dates from 1941, when the 27-year-old composer was still in his self-imposed American exile.

In terms of genre, it best fits the category of musical comedy, and the score flows with an exuberant melodic invention and innocent charm which could give any Broadway hit a run for its money: it presses the romantic, funny, rumbustious and uplifting buttons as confidently as the contemporary Oklahoma!, and like that Rodgers and Hammerstein evergreen, it looks to the mythology of the American frontier for its subject-matter.

But Britten’s librettist wasn’t simply a sentimental wordsmith happy to rhyme eye with sky: WH Auden was far too clever for that, and he can’t resist using the tall tale of a giant lumberjack of the Canadian backwoods as a springboard for pontificating meditations on the soul of America. The result teeters on the smug: camp, arch and snooty. Fortunately, ETO minimizes the damage and lets us enjoy the fun and tap our feet without Auden’s pretentious allusions and sneers continually nudging our ribs.

Liam Steel’s lively, detailed and atmospheric production opts for realism, setting the action in a barn where the male and female denizens of a logging camp work, eat and sleep together until they finally light out for the big city.

The songs they sing and the dances they dance are part of their efforts to entertain themselves of an evening, Prairie Home Companion style. From a vocal point of view, Mark Wilde as the bookish Johnny Insklinger and the enchanting Caryl Hughes as Bunyan’s daughter Tiny stand out, but this is a team effort to which everyone contributes with panache.

Damian Lewis, no less, is the recorded offstage voice of the God-like Paul Bunyan; Philip Sunderland conducts the band from behind the scenes. The pace needs to move up a gear, but once liberated from the stifling and inhibiting environment of the Linbury Studio, the show will surely take wing and give much pleasure on its national tour.

Until Friday 21 February, then touring Tel 020 7304 4000; www.englishtouringopera.org.uk