Britten : Peter Grimes
English National Opera Chorus
English National Opera Orchestra
Edward Gardner
It's a bold move for English National Opera to launch into the HD broadcast market. It's an expensive undertaking, the company is going to need to target more broadly than just within the UK. However, there are two basic problems. Firstly, its remit is to present its operas sung in English, which limits any potential audience outwith the country. Secondly, the company cannot afford to present rosters of the kind of international star singers houses like the Met, or the ROH do, which again limits the potential audience. However, if ENO was going to throw its hat in the ring, they could hardly have had a better introduction than this outstanding performance of Peter Grimes.
I've expressed my opinion - not to say my doubts - of some of David Alden's work previously. This production spares us some of his extravagancies in favour of a spare, hard, clear reading, set not in the early-19th Century period of Crabbe's poem, but in the immediate post-WWII. The biggest shock, so to speak, is that Alden's production is remarkably claustrophobic. For a score that constantly breathes the flat, open seascapes of the Sussex coast, there are walls always visible. The vista opens out briefly for the Sunday morning scene, and at the very end, but otherwise there is no sensation of a community in tune, in any way, with nature, whereas Britten's score, ending where it began (leaving out the Prologue), implies just the contrary, that life in the Borough is eventually subsumed to the rhythm of the sea, and goes on regardless of any of the joys and tragedies that may take place behind the walls of the inhabitants' homes.
It is perhaps something Alden chose to help distinguish Grimes from the townsfolk, for Grimes is fixated on the sea to the exclusion of his community, and that is one of the aspects that causes the distrust which pursues him. In the end, it's not about Grimes's cruelty to the boy - there's just as much abuse going on in other parts of the community - it's that Grimes has distinguished himself rather than blending in. There's no sexual element to Grimes's relations with his unfortunate apprentices in this version, but there is the suggestion of continuance of abuse. Grimes is abusive to his apprentices not just because he's inclined to be something of a brute, but because he was abused himself as a boy, and knows no other way, and Ellen does not know how to communicate other options to him.
Of course, this is an Alden production; there are some eccentricities. Apothecary Ned Keene is a pill-popping masher, repulsive from start to finish, where normally he's ambiguous but one of the characters with a solid core of common sense, for the most part. Auntie is a club-footed, acerbic, lesbian sophisticate, just as alien to the community as Grimes himself, one would have thought, while the "nieces" are weird, robotic twins, senseless puppets, the clearest victims of abuse after Grimes himself. It's visually effective, but doesn't make a lot of sense dramatically, particularly in the context of the marvellous Act 2 trio "From the gutter". What can these women, this Auntie and these Nieces, know of men? Nothing save their most aberrant behaviour. However, on the whole, this is a very strong production, and the quality of the individual performances set the seal on the evening.
Britten wrote the title role for Peter Pears, but since the 60s it's become as common to cast a much more powerful type of tenor as Grimes, and Stuart Skelton fits that mould. Skelton's a heldentenor, a big, burly voice to match his big, burly frame, yet capable of subtlety and, here and there, moments of astonishing, even heart-breaking sweetness. It wasn't flawlessly sung, but the part permits a certain amount of leeway, and Skelton never went beyond the pale in that respect. Elza van den Heever lent her shining soprano to a solid, sober and extremely sure account of Ellen Orford that could have done with perhaps a dash of fantasy, but maybe not in the context of this production. Iain Paterson was a similarly solid Balstrode, but all his characterisation was in his appearance - former RN captain, invalided out through crippling injury - rather than in his voice.
There is a plethora of small character roles in Peter Grimes, deftly penned by Britten, but it is up to the individual interpreters to exploit them fully. All of the singing was of good quality, but as with Paterson's Balstrode, some were not able to make themselves stand out vocally as well as visually. Into this category fell Rhian Lois and Mary Bevan as the Nieces, Leigh Melrose as Ned Keene, and Michael Colvin's Bob Boles. On the other hand, Rebecca de Pont Davies was a very striking (if rather detestable) Auntie, Matthew Treviño made quite an impact in his brief interjections as Hobson, Matthew Best was his usual excellent self as Justice Swallow, and there was a real star turn from Dame Felicity Palmer, still going strong in her 70th year, as a formidably venomous Mrs. Sedley, both dramatically and vocally.
This is an opera not just about one person, however, but about a community, and that means that the chorus is virtually a character in its own right. Without a really strong choral presence, the piece will fall flat. The ENO Chorus did not fail in any respect, and the great, baying call of "Peter Grimes!" at the end of 3:i was enough to raise the hairs on the back of your neck, while the whole endeavour was superbly supported by the ENO Orchestra playing as if possessed, under the inspired direction of the company's outgoing Music Director, Edward Gardner. ENO has come in for a great deal of critical flak over the last couple of years, for both its production and its musical values, but this Peter Grimes amply demonstrates that the company is still capable of turning out truly memorable performances.
[Next : 26th February]
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