Peter Grimes

Britten, Benjamin

album cover

A British Seafaring Saga, Set to Music

An outsider with rage-a-holic tendencies, the fisherman Peter Grimes is mistrusted by the people of his small town. He has a habit of hiring boy apprentices and losing them at sea. The opera opens at a court hearing (there's no overture), where Grimes, sung here by Jon Vickers, convinces the authorities that the latest situation was accidental. The people remain suspicious—much of the dialog consists of gossip: In one telling scene, Grimes enters a tavern during a storm only to find that he's the main topic of conversation, and of course he's shunned. Later Grimes returns from an expedition having lost another apprentice. This turns the town into an angry mob. The final scene is a heartbreaker: Grimes arrives onstage alone, barely outrunning the crowd. His only friend tells him his best option is to take the fishing boat out to sea, and commit suicide by sinking it. He's last seen heading away from the shore. End of opera.

Peter Grimes is British composer Benjamin Britten's second opera, and his most famous. It was premiered in 1945, and it represents something unusual for twentieth-century music: Its language is thoroughly modern, built from sharp angles and juxtapositions, yet avoids atonality. The motifs hold plenty of challenges—some of the leading roles walked out before the premiere, claiming their parts were unsingable—but are also, in their own way, rhapsodic.

Usually, the sexual orientation of composers doesn't impact our understanding of a piece—Handel was probably gay and who cares? Britten (1913–1976) is a different story. He was gay, and wrote with sympathy about outsiders like Grimes; it's highly unlikely that Grimes would be as resonant a character had its composer not been acquainted with social stigma, disapproving neighbors, and all the rest.

The role of Peter Grimes was introduced by Britten's longtime partner, Peter Pears, who became one of the great English tenors of his time. When this austere production appeared in the 1970s, Vickers drew significant criticism—according to legend, Britten walked out on the performance. There are pronounced differences: Pears played Grimes as a sensitive soul caught in brutal circumstances; Vickers approaches the character as more of a blue-collar brute.

One additional reason to seek out the Vickers version is the Royal Opera House Orchestra, which wrings every ounce of drama from Britten's sea scenes. These aren't the peaceful lapping waves of Debussy's La mer. In conductor Sir Colin Davis's rendering, Britten's ocean is a vast, heaving, relentlessly uncontrollable force, cruel, random, and unforgiving. In other words, perfect for the subject.

Genre: Opera
Released: 1978, Philips
Key Tracks: Act 1: "The Truth . . . the Pity . . . and the Truth"; Act 2: "Fool to Let It Come to This."
Another Interpretation: Peter Pears, Covent Garden Royal Opera House Chorus and Orchestra (Britten, cond.). Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes, London Symphony Orchestra (Andre Previn, cond.).
Catalog Choice: Death in Venice, Peter Pears.
Next Stop: Igor Stravinsky: Rite of Spring, Cleveland Symphony Orchestra (Pierre Boulez, cond.)
Book Pages: 116–117