This dramatisation by David Alden of Schubert’s final cycle, and the programme that showed its preparation, were broadcast on Channel 4 just after Christmas 1997. As they both went out at unsuitable hours it is unlikely they had much of an audience. So here’s a chance to catch up with what was, and still is, a riveting experience.
Of course, the work lives on its own without any staging. The initially dubious Bostridge and Drake make that point at the start of the feature, their faces filling with dismay as Alden describes his seemingly hare-brained ideas to turn it into a melodrama about a crazed protagonist. It is implied in what follows that singer and pianist gained confidence in what Alden had in mind, while the director came to respect Bostridge’s intelligence and dramatic gifts. Indeed, the whole project would have collapsed had not the tenor the ability to sear the soul as much visually as aurally. His piercing eyes, striking looks and suitable age make him an ideal candidate for such an experiment.
Inspired by a disused mental asylum in north London, Alden and his designer, Ian MacNeil, create a huge, empty space, as desolate as the abandoned asylum itself, in which the beginning and end of the cycle are enacted. In-between, Bostridge is projected onto a white background, arrestingly so in the case of ‘Die Krahe’, where the singer is viewed from above by the crow with Bostridge spread-eagled on the floor below, an astonishing image, mirroring the bird’s menace. Among the unforgettable shots are the picture of the forlorn shattered figure in ‘Die Nebensonnen’, which Alden and Bostridge agree has a mystic, religious aura to it, the lone protagonist seen at a distance in ‘Das Wirtshaus’, the singer seated back to back with the pianist in ‘Mut’. Doubts arise only with the introduction during two songs of the unfaithful girl and her family, disturbing the vision of the lonely sufferer.
At the heart of the video lies Bostridge’s unerring blend of silvery tone, special, highly individual intensity of utterance and identification with the man’s desperate plight. Drake supports him with playing of equal insight. The sound, fairly closely miked, is excellent; the camerawork highly imaginative.'