These Signum CDs let you hear a historic interpretation in the
making. In the three performances given during the second week of the 2013
Aldeburgh Festival
Peter Grimes was staged for the first time against
the backdrop of the actual setting of the opera, Aldeburgh beach and the
North Sea. These CDs, however, are derived from the two concert performances
at Snape Maltings in the first week of the Festival. You might think it
would be better to wait for the Arthaus DVD of the
Grimes on the
beach which I shall also be reviewing for MusicWeb International, but
here I consider the merits of this earlier presentation and they are
considerable.
For me these CDs have four outstanding features. First, Alan
Oke’s Peter Grimes which is distinctive and yet also different from
earlier Peters. On the one hand he plays him as an ordinary bloke,
straightforward and direct. On the other hand he is shown with a lyrical
side which emerges through tension, a distraught lyricism. You can hear this
for example at ‘Picture what that day was like’, recalling his
first apprentice’s death. Its heart-wringing ‘Alone, alone,
alone’ close has a poignancy which matches that of Peter Pears in
Britten’s 1958 recording (Decca 4757713). Oke’s expression is
immediate, as if re-lived at that moment, where Pears’ is more
poetically meditative. This distinction also applies in the ‘What
harbour shelters peace’ soliloquy which ends the scene and Oke’s
lucid transparency here I find more engaging. At his aria in Act 1 Scene 2,
‘Now the Great Bear and Pleiades’, beginning gently, not a
quality one usually associates with Peter, Oke finds a purer, heightened
lyricism. Thjis is not the haunting golden tone of Pears but comes from a
more credible base than Pears’ more distant poet. The same might be
said of the Act 2 Scene 2 aria ‘In dreams I’ve built myself some
kindlier home’. Here Oke has an attractive fluency where Pears seems
able to make time stand still. In the closing Mad Scene Oke conveys both
Peter’s volatility, his excessive reaction to the community he
imagines closing around him and his fundamental innocence in the purity of
his lyricism. He lacks Pears’ weariness or intimacy of expression but
Oke still gives a moving and memorable account.
The second outstanding feature is the chorus. In fact two choruses
were merged, that of Opera North and the Guildhall School of Music and
Drama. The latter, a third of the 48-strong force, are of young, student
principal study singers. The outcome is great clarity of articulation and
diction. At the opening of Act 1 they present a calm acceptance of their
accustomed routine but also a keen appreciation of the might of the sea at
‘Are billets for the thieving waves which take/As if in sleep,
thieving for thieving’s sake’. Their first passage rising to
ff, which needs to tell and it does. In comparison the Royal Opera
House Covent Garden Chorus in Britten’s recording seems heavy and
sullen. When the chorus berates Ellen later in this scene Bedford’s
forces do so with more menace than Britten’s. They face the storm in
the big chorus and ensemble in Act 1 Scene 1 with distress yet also
determination. Britten’s recording, on the other hand, emphasizes the
disciplined virtuosity of the music in comparison with which the words
expressed appear secondary. With Bedford you note the earnestness of the
beach prayer, ‘O tide that waits for no man, spare our coasts!’
that is never found when they sing in church in Act 2 Scene 1. There their
Benedicite has instead a restlessness which matches the recitative of
Peter and Ellen at the same time. Their song in procession to Peter’s
hut at the end of that scene is both biting and a jamboree. The briskly
articulated fugue in Act 3 Scene 1, ‘Him who despises us, we’ll
destroy’, is more clinical but worked into a great adrenalin shower of
ecstatic ‘Ha-ha’s. It’s not as nasty as the more measured
Britten’s chorus gloating, but suitably capped by cries of
‘Peter Grimes’ with soprano and tenor top B flats ringing out
thrillingly.
The third outstanding feature is the Britten-Pears Orchestra made up
of conservatoire students or recent graduates from 35 countries. It lacks
the sheer body of the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in
Britten’s recording but it’s fresh, incisive, alert to both the
dramatic and comic aspects of the accompaniment. The Sea Interludes are
conveyed with a raw atmosphere, excitement and tension. In
Dawn the
sea is always a lurking presence, a power held in reserve, revealing itself
fully only at the interlude’s climax. Bedford’s
Storm is
fiery and demonic, though Britten’s recording has more urgency and
sheer frenzy. Bedford’s
Sunday Morning has clear church bells
pealing from the horns, strings’ waves and woodwind birds dancing
around. His Passacaglia opens with a fragile yet also sinewy viola solo
depicting the apprentice and then has an irresistible momentum. Britten also
has the latter feature and rather more of it in the waves’ majority
presence in
Moonlight. Bedford emphasizes the flickering activity
above them more at first. He effects a transformation as the waves become
more insistent and the activity tangential. This links well with the
frivolity of the dance activities that are the backcloth to Act 3 Scene 1
which follows immediately.
The final outstanding feature and perhaps the most significant is
the vividness of the interplay of characters and integral orchestral
contribution. This is the achievement of Steuart Bedford. The passages of
recitative between the Borough characters are more animated and
conversational than in Britten’s recording. Henry Waddington’s
Swallow is forthright and confident. Though less taunting and aggressive
than Owen Brannigan’s for Britten, he nevertheless is sufficiently
arch to contrast with David Kempster’s Balstrode who is more
straightforwardly, you might say naturally, authoritative. James
Pease’s Balstrode for Britten is less characterful than Kempster.
Charles Rice’s Ned Keene - I disagree with my MusicWeb International
colleague Simon Thompson - here is more racy and amused by everything than
Geraint Evans for Britten. Stephen Richardson’s Hobson also has a
wryness about his ‘I have to go from pub to pub’ that’s
more endearing than the resentment conveyed by David Kelly for Britten. With
ample vibrato Giselle Allen presents Ellen with her emotions always fully on
display. This works well in her big Act 1 aria ‘Let her among you
without fault’. I prefer Claire Watson’s greater calmness for
Britten in her ‘love duet’ with Peter ending the Prologue.
Gaynor Keeble’s Auntie here I find a touch more robust than Jean
Watson’s for Britten.
The clarity of the ensemble work helps in the enjoyment of the often
complex textures. For instance, in Act 1 Scene 2 I realized for the first
time the Nieces’ lines solely on high E at ‘His song alone would
sour the beer’(tr. 22, 2:41) and ‘I wouldn’t mind if he
didn’t howl’ (2:52) ironically mimic Peter’s ‘Now
the Great Bear and Pleiades’ on the same note. The round ‘Old
Joe has gone fishing’, the centrepiece of that scene, is delivered
lightly at first as marked and is therefore a gleeful celebration. In this
it is truer to the spirit of the piece, the community at its happiest, than
the greater urgency but more emphasis on virtuosity of the equally clear
layering of Britten’s recording. In Bedford’s account the
Nieces’ fine descant to top A flat on ‘O haul a
way’
(tr. 23, 2:07) clearly caps Peter’s entry leaping the same note at
‘When
I had gone fishing’ (1:26). With muted strings the
quartet for Ellen, Auntie and the Nieces which ends this scene is plainly a
lullaby, though an oddball one. I always feel for the First Niece, asked to
sing the closing ‘sleep’
pp on top D flat, so full marks
to Alexandra Hutton for doing it so well.
Seeing an opera provides a more complete experience of what is a
multimedia form but the visual input can also be a distraction. You can view
the restriction here to sound alone positively as a specialization. Because
you are hearing a concert performance, you gain the genuine projection to an
audience a studio recording can only simulate. Because that performance is
looking forward to a staged one there’s an additional buzz about it.
The result is an end product that works, perhaps surprisingly, well on its
own - a freshly minted interpretation.
Michael Greenhalgh
Britten review index & discography:
Peter Grimes
Previous review: Simon Thompson
