SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Britten, Peter Grimes  Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra of Opera North / Richard Farnes (conductor)  Sadler’s Wells Theatre, London, 26.2.2008 (BB)


In 1945, during the première production of Grimes, there was a bus conductor on the 38 route, which still passes the theatre, who used to shout, “alight here for Sadler’s Wells Theatre, and Peter Grimes, Fisherman and sadist!” I can’t see the drivers of the current bendy buses which run that route having the same interest!

But what of our concept of - and insight into -  the character of Grimes? He  is certainly no sadist. He’s a successful fisherman, running a business which pays the bills and interests him. He has the love of a good woman, Ellen Orford, the widowed schoolmistress. And he has one very good friend, the retired Captain Balstrode, who probably understands him more than anyone in the Borough. But his life is hard and, because of this, he has become hardened himself and this is the ultimate cause of his downfall. Peter Grimes is no hero, but his is not a personality to revile; in a sensitive performance he commands our sympathy – but he must never make us feel pity for him. Musically, this production by Opera North shows us Grimes as both the poet and dreamer, the hard working man, who has become at odds with his fellows.

There was much to admire in this performance. Jonathan Summers’s Balstrode was the base on which the production was firmly anchored. His was a fine, solid, performance, sung with great sensitivity and intelligence, making him truly believable as Grimes’s friend and ally. Giselle Allen’s Ellen Orford worried me with a bit of wobble at the top but when she quietly soared up to the high B flat at the end of the Embroidery aria, in Act 3, she found the note so effortlessly and purely that I could have forgiven her anything. The smaller parts were uniformly good, and I must admit to never having enjoyed Roderick Williams’s singing as much as I did here – a fine portrayal of the apothecary, Ned Keene.

But the opera is totally Grimes’s; his character absolutely dominates the action – even when he isn’t on stage the talk is all of Grimes and his doings. Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts was magnificent, taking us from the (wrongly) accused and misunderstood man at the opera's beginning, through to his final loss of reason – there was no madness here - with a portrayal of Grimes as a tormented soul, a victim of the circumstances of his own making. There were so many highlights, but I must mention three: the aria in the pub scene, Now the Great Bear and Pleiades, where he floated the high E’s with ease and purity, the scene in his hut in Act 2, where he begins to loose his reason, with visions of his dead apprentice, as the villagers come to confront him, and, of course, the great final scene, just an empty stage, an off-stage chorus baying for blood, a fog horn and Grimes, a man tormented by the vicissitudes of life itself. What a piece of vocal acting!

The chorus and orchestra were excellent, the latter giving us forthright performances of the ever so important sea interludes and providing the background to the action. Richard Farnes conducted with total insight and understanding.

The production bothered me a bit. This opera starts with the courtroom scene - but not in this production. As the curtain rose we saw a dead male body on the stage (is this supposed to be Grimes after the end of the opera?) with children running round it. I thought we had somehow stumbled into Berg’s Wozzeck, and it wasn’t until the music started that I knew which opera I was about to watch. Likewise at the end, the opera ends when the music ends, but in this production the stage action of mending and checking the fishing nets, going to the pub and daily actions continued in silence. There was no need for it. Nor did we need to see the dead body of Grimes’s second apprentice – the mere idea of the boy’s death is sufficient to be horrifying for the audience. And, for reasons best known to the director, we had to see it twice, at the end of Act 2 and the beginning of Act 3, with Grimes kneeling over the body in despair. The audience is sufficiently adult and intelligent to understand this without being shown it.

However, there were a few felicitous touches. The staging was simple, in general a few wooden palettes moved round the stage by the singers served to give almost all the scenery. I especially liked the use of the Passacaglia interlude to show Grimes interacting with the villagers  in happier times, as they built his hut for him and then, as he paid them, we saw their attitude starting to change. Also, due to the fact that the sea interludes are as much a study of Grimes as they are of the sea itself, we saw Grimes on stage for some of them, being part of the music. What was peculiar was that everyone was in beautifully clean and well pressed clothes – Grimes’s especially well tailored yellow dungarees were most certainly at odds with his job and position. I did begin to wonder how much business the launderette in the Borough was doing!

One or two quibbles aside, all in all, this is a fantastic production with some great singing and story telling. Tonight, Peter Grimes truly came home to Sadler’s Wells Theatre.

Bob Briggs


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