It’s a hard act to follow. The roles were created by Benjamin Luxon and Janet Baker in that first, televised, production of Benjamin Britten’s Owen Wingrave, but Ross Ramgobin and Catherine Backhouse make something very interesting of the eponymous Owen and his cousin Kate Julian, respectively.

Director Neil Bartlett has chosen a mixed time period for his production. The singing parts are dressed in late Victorian costumes, whereas the non-singing Dead are in grey suits or Parachute Regimentals – a nod, perhaps, to 3 Para’s 21st century deployment in Kandahar Province, linking to Owen’s father’s death there?

The Dead take the place of the family portraits, which oppress young Owen, expected to follow family tradition and serve Queen and country. After much thought, he tells his Sandhurst crammer that he won’t go through with it. Thereafter, the opera depicts the various attempts to bully him out of his decision.

His aunt, Mrs Julian, living on charity in her relations’ house, sees her dreams of financial independence for her daughter dashed – Kate and Owen are not going to get married. Kate sees her own future happiness fade – she cannot marry a coward. His mother and grandfather disown him – he is a disgrace to the family.
Especially in their second act quarrel, Ramgobin and Backhouse bring out these family tensions. Two damaged children, the latest generation brought up fatherless by widows clutching, in their grief, at glory to justify their loss. What chance did they have?

Without a doubt, Mrs Coyle, the wife of the crammer, is the most sympathetic character, expressively sung in a light, conversational soprano by Samantha Crawford. Her husband, who has been teaching Owen strategy, is wise, seeing in Owen the makings of a great soldier who understands, unlike the fellow student Lechmere (Isaiah Bell) whose gung ho enthusiasm will, it is implied, end in an early and foolhardy grave in some foreign field. Jonathan Summers imbues Spencer Coyle with dignity and patience.

The women of the house do not croak, but they are like ravens, calling for carrion, especially when they all assail Owen at the same time.  They relish the word ‘Scruples’, albeit Britten has given them good music to relish it with. Susan Bullock as Miss Jane Wingrave and Janis Kelly as Mrs Julian are full of righteous indignation as Owen, in effect, throws all they have lived by into question. How dare he, indeed? General Sir Philip Wingrave (Richard Berkeley-Steele) is almost comical in his doddery outrage.

Simon Daw’s set is spare. The Dead wheel round screens, variously blackboards, wallpaper, wood-panelling, to indicate the separate locations. Struan Leslie choreographs their menacing gestures, their crowding in on Owen. The Choristers of Chelmsford Cathedral, in their pyjamas, are ghosts of the boy, killed by an earlier Colonel Wingrave for ‘cowardice’ in the ballad chillingly sung by the General’s batman, James Way, and are, in turn, killed by the Dead.

The Britten-Pears Orchestra, conducted by Mark Wigglesworth, underpins this vocal turmoil, keeping it steady and punctuating it with precision.