One
of the important principles surrounding Peter
Grimes, and often forgotten, is that Britten
wrote the score with certain voices in mind.
This has sometimes created problems in subsequent
performances of the work (the composer famously
loathed Jon Vickers as Grimes, for example).
But the effect can sometimes be quite radical;
Vickers was an extraordinary vocal and physical
presence who shunted the opera in to new,
and different, psychological territory. Imogen
Holst spoke of Peter Pears’ Grimes as "growing
in stature until he was bearing the burden
of all those other outcasts…". She was
talking only of Act III; with Vickers this
was a constant, unshifting characterisation
throughout the opera.
Sir
Colin Davis only partly succeeded, in these
twin performances, in getting this right –
with some notable exceptions – and that places
his conception in different territory too.
Being neither a mirror of Britten nor of his
younger self, Davis falls between a rock and
a hard place, and it can sometimes appear
uncomfortable. What cannot be questioned is
the playing of the London Symphony Orchestra
– magnificent, sumptuous and perilously close
to perfection – as they rip through the score
with a cluster of sound Britten would have
found astonishing. Those deeply burnished
strings brought a hue of darkness to the most
transparent moments (the sixth Interlude,
for example, partly a depiction of Grimes’
growing madness, and here quite sinister in
its coloration); in the third Interlude their
playing was scorching, intense and quicksilver.
Davis’ energy was astonishing.
Indeed,
having this as a concert performance rather
than a staged one brought dividends when it
came to the orchestra. How often after the
storm Interlude does a listener then hear
the storm recalled through the orchestra when
the scene shifts to the action inside The
Boar? In this performance it was the epicentre
of the action until the first act’s closing
pages – a perfectly satisfactory outcome for
this reviewer but I can see others might quibble
with its impact being so divisive to events
happening elsewhere.
Two
moments shine out as being amongst the finest
I have heard in any performance of this opera.
The first was Grimes’ "Now the Great
Bear and Pleiades" aria sung with exceptional
imagination and beauty of tone by Glenn Winslade.
The complete antithesis of Vickers here, he
came closer to recalling the mysteries of
human grief, and the subliminal angst of vulnerability,
than any other interpreter of the role in
my experience. The middle register of his
voice conveyed just the right degree of plangency
making his Grimes a more touching anti-hero
than is usually the case. Dynamics were remarkable.
Perhaps for this very reason, his Act III
monologue – disjointed utterances, unfathomable
in their sense – seemed less jagged than they
should. This Grimes seemed less mad, less
raving and more a man who has already come
to terms with his fate than is commonly perceived.
The
second moment of greatness was the wonderful
Quartet before the Passacaglia. Ellen, Auntie
and her two nieces reflect on women’s relationships
with men and it was stunningly done. Janice
Watson – as Ellen – sung with purity of expression
and Jill Groves – in a moving portrayal of
Auntie – brought great wisdom to her singing.
Sally Matthews and Alison Buchanan as the
nieces were flirty, but uncommonly close in
timbre. All four shone through out the performance
– a radical departure that had as much to
do with them mirroring the glowing orchestral
backdrop as it did Davis’ overall view of
this opera as a warmer, more humane animal
than it used to be seen as.
Not
that this prevented Catherine Wyn-Rogers seizing
every opportunity she was given to make her
Mrs Sedley – odiously characterised – the
upholder of intolerance and prejudice. With
her flame-red hair, and with spectacles perched
on the end of her nose, her impact seemed
as much visual as it did vocal. Best of the
rest, were Anthony Michaels-Moore’s Balstrode
– nowhere better than in his scene with Ellen
at the close of the opera – and Jonathan Lemalu’s
Hobson – a small part, but so memorably sung.
The
LSO Chorus took on the role of the Borough’s
townspeople with an innate feeling for the
tragedy that is about to unfold. The contrast
between the opening chorus – deliberately
conceived by Britten to add contrast to the
drabness of the community against the coloration
of the setting – and the closing chorus, with
rampant shouts of "Peter Grimes! Peter
Grimes!" were handled superbly. The only
dramaturgy was when they turned their backs
to the audience as the hunt for Grimes began.
At fortissimo, their vocalisation seemed congested,
but for the most part they brayed and cajoled
their way through Britten’s occasionally dense
scoring admirably.
The
lack of a libretto didn’t cause problems.
The clarity of the diction was often very
transparent, notably so in the Grimes of Winslade.
But that was not really enough to convince
me that his performance – despite being so
beautifully sung in places – was other than
a depiction of a fisherman who meekly accepts
his fate. Perhaps on stage it would have been
different.
Nor
was there anything radical about Sir Colin
Davis’ grasp of the score – if anything he
seemed to actually make Britten’s opera rather
"of its time". It impressed on the
surface without really trying to scrape beneath
it. Rather than the deep wounds that can make
Grimes a powerfully relevant opera
– even 60 years after it was written – this
seemed a performance that saw nothing contemporary
in it at all. On that level, it was disappointing
and uncomfortable – but as a showpiece for
the London Symphony Orchestra it proved, once
again, that they are peerless.
Marc Bridle
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