By MICHAEL KENNEDY

ONE BENEFIT which flowed from Britten’s long last illness five years ago was his decision to revise and reissue the operetta - a misnomer – "Paul Bunyan" which he wrote in America in 1941 to an extravagantly-clever libretto by W. H. Auden. It is being performed as part of the York Festival by pupils of Archbishop Holgate's and Queen Anne Grammar Schools (with a modicum of adult help) and I advise anyone who can to attend one of the two remaining performances at the Rowntree Theatre, not only because it is a brilliant and touching work but because it is quite incredibly well done.

It came halfway between tbe successful radio and film collaborations of Britten and Auden and their separate emergence as superb opera-librettist and opera-composer. For all its occasional jejune limitations, it was ahead of its time, a true American "musical" of a kind now familiar.

Britten intended it for late teenagers and this was the first British performance to fulfil that aim. I am convinced he would have been thrilled by this Old York achievement and not only because the New York Composer-critics of the 1940s were so hostile to the work - here were two young English immigrants writing the kind of opera no American composer had then produced.

With attractively-simple sets and costumes and good lighting, this fable of the dawn of America, symbolised by the mythical folk - hero, Paul Bunyan (an off-stage speaking voice) was brought to life with imaginative zest and wit by these talented schoolchildren -accents are no problem to today's youth, brought up on television series.

The cast is too large for more than a few to be singled out. but there was scarcely a weak portrayal. Outstanding were Andrew Tagg's forceful Helson, the amusing cats of Shelagh Croft and Susan Clasper, the sweet-voiced Tiny of Julie Bewick, Jonathan Brown's telegram boy and the ballad-singer of Nigel Nicholson. The experienced Gordon Pullin sang Inkslinger and Robert Bunting conducted an orchestra which let us in no doubt of 90 per cent of the effectiveness of the score. Keith Daggett produced this uplifting evening, in which the cast’s clear diction was an example to many of their seniors.

Review in Times Educational Supplement, 11 July 1980

Paul Bunyan

Geoffrey Summerfield

Take an "epic" subject (the development of America from the time of the early settlers up to about 1940), spice it with ironies, jokes, tall tales, extravagances, elements of pantomime, and neatly turned rhyme; set it to music, with elements of ballad, folk-song, blues and hymns: if the librettist and composer happen to possess genius, the result will be Paul Bunyan.

Auden's libretto to Britten's opera is, by turns, dazzling, witty absurd, poignant, boisterous and elegiac. On the surface the action is consistently interesting and eventful, always dramatic; and sporadically Auden's words probe the deeper political and moral dimensions of American history, especially of that history as action, or act. The libretto is a totally characteristic Auden poem, and at the same time a perfectly dramatic vehicle. He never wrote better for the theatre.

Musically, the poem offers one of Britten's most cheerfully and zest-fully inventive scores, and it was only the philistinism of the critics at the first performance (Columbia University, New York City, in May 1941) that led Britten to suppress the work for so many years. He took it up again in the mid seven-ties, made a few revisions, and it was broadcast by the BBC, with a cast of adult singers, in 1976.

The significant features of the recent York Festival production were manifold: it was the first production using the forces for which the opera was intended ("high school students"); it brought Auden, with a posthumous bang, back to his native city; and it was home grown - the work of two schools, Archbishop Holgate's and Queen Anne's; and it was a brilliant production. No concessions were made to the fact that these were untrained amateur adolescent singers; their performances had attack, vitality, zest, precision, and an unaffected enthusiasm. It involved about a hundred singers and musicians; the sets and costumes were delectable; Keith Daggett's production was well-nigh flawless; and the musical direction (by Robert Bunting) exactly caught the lively youthful energy of the work. It made me impatient to see it done again, often, and soon.

Review in Yorkshire Post, June 27 1980

Rowntree Theatre:

Archbishop Holgate's and Queen Anne Grammar

Schools In "Paul Bunyan" (Britten).

Visitors are fortunate as regards Britten's first stage work written in 1941 and they should be urged to see this splendid presentation by York's own teenagers (I use the word with respect) in the remaining performances either tonight or tomorrow. With his own devotion to youth, Britten himself would have, I am sure, praised it highly.

There is a realistic set designed by Michael Rogers, an excellent and observant production by Keith Daggett, and Robert Bunting is the immaculate conductor of a first rate orchestra of combined children and adults.

So the piece never fails to hold the attention; and it is an irony that what was once considered a failure has now, thanks to 40 years of Pop music, suddenly become fashionable.

It is easy to understand the American critics' dismay all those years ago. Who were these clever young men from abroad, Britten and Auden, daring to tell the Americans the folk history of their own country? And what was this strange mixture of popular legend pretending to universal morality, in a style reminiscent of Kurt Weill?

Though, to give them credit, the American critics also spotted Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Rimsky Korsakov, not to mention Mascagni and Gilbert and Sullivan among the influences. They must have fell pretty sick four years later when "Peter Grimes" appeared on the scene; for the seeds of Britten's genius are fully apparent in this work which shall, I promise, have a more detailed study at a later date.

Meanwhile, we have this colourful, vivacious, spontaneous, delightful interpretation such as only the enthusiastic young are able to produce, being so splendidly without prejudice. The felicities, like the cast, are too numerous to mention. Gordon PulIin, tbe tenor, as Johnny Inkslinger, is the only professional in a role that could hardly be expected of a younger person.

But there are other artists just the same, among them Julie Bewick as Tiny (strange to hear her lovely song again so soon after Heather Harper’s interpretation at Aldeburgh last Sunday evening), Jeremy Williams and John Butcher as the Folk Musicians, Shelagh Croft and Susan Clasper as the cats and a marvellous ten seconds sketch from Johnathan Brown as the Westen Union Boy.

York owes much to its young performers this year. In the final analysis, on the musical side, they have probably been its justification, if not indeed its salvation.