A madwoman crosses a river

A wandering madwoman, in search of her lost son, crosses a river. On the far bank she finds a grave, the boy's ghost, and her sanity. This barebones tale of miracle and redemption is the premise of Benjamin Britten's church parable, Curlew River. The style is a mixture of Latin ritual and Japanese Noh play.

The venue was Synod House in New York's Morningside Heights. A haze of incense in the neo-Gothic architecture turned the clock back several centuries in the Christian Era. Seven musicians sat at one end of the grand hall. A raised white platform ran the length of the hall with banks of tiered seating on either side, four rows deep. At the far end was a tall mast, topped with a cross.

Ian Bostridge sang the madwoman. The British tenor, who turns fifty this Christmas, still looks like a gangly teen. His voice has kept its elasticity, but his youthfulness undermines his credibility as commanding sea captains or ancient monarchs. Here, however, his towering gaunt frame augmented the madwoman's deprivation.

Jeremy White, Neal Davies and Mark Stone played an abbot, a traveler and a ferryman. Eight men and two boy trebles were a chorus of pilgrims and acolytes. A third treble sang the dead son. Britten's score calls for flute, horn, percussion, harp, viola and double bass; Martin Fitzpatrick conducted from a chamber organ.

Monochrome video projections on the platform and ferry sail depicted the river, the grave, the gulls mistaken for curlews. The madwoman spattered white grief upon a black void. The power of this production lay in what director and designer Netia Jones found below the surface of the stark text.