Arts Journal by Paul Levy

Death in Venice

As the other singing roles are not enormous, it makes good sense, as director Paul Curran does at Garsington, to treat the dance as an equal element of the show, and here choreographer Andreas Heise has created a spectacle that is both gorgeous and drives the narrative. It helps, of course, that Tadzio is played by Celestin Boutin, who has the looks of Mann’s imagined boy (though he is a few years post-adolescence and a foot or to taller) and whose athletic dancing is the equivalent of Paul Nilon’s singing. There are five other young male dancers, including Jaschiu (Chris Agius Darmanin), Tadzio’s wrestling-on-the-beach friend, and they are all splendid to look at in their one-piece bathing costumes as well as strong, vigorous and lithe. But Boutin is a real marvel, with the high leaps and extension I associate with the young Nureyev, and genuine acting ability. His Tadzio connected with Aschenbach with a kind of electricity that meant that, though they never speak, a current flowed between them, so that you felt that Tadzio was always aware of the writer’s presence, whether he looked in his direction or not.