BRITTENâS PETER GRIMES
A SHORT GUIDE TO A GREAT OPERA
The opera and its composer
Whoâs who and whatâs what
The interval: talking points
Act by act
THE OPERA AND ITS COMPOSER
âOne of the most significant events in British operatic historyâ is how the première of Peter Grimes has been described. It âstamped Britten as the most gifted music dramatist England had produced since Purcell.â1 It was adopted eagerly by foreign houses,2 and it secured his interÂnational reputation.
It has been included âamongst the greatest of all operas.â Although the smaller stage at Londonâs Sadlers Wells, where it was premièred, gave it a suitably claustrophobic atmosphere, Peter Grimes is intended for a large audience in a large theatre. It consists of three acts, with a total running time of about two-and-a-half hours.
In 1941, during the Second World War, Benjamin Britten was living in self-imposed exile in California. He read an article by E.M. Forster â the novelist best known for A Passage to India and Howardâs End and who was a member of Brittenâs homosexual circle â about George Crabbe, the Suffolk poet who left his birthplace at Aldeburgh, but never escaped from it âin spiritâ. Crabbe and his poem The Borough, alias Aldeburgh, struck a particular chord with Britten, who, at heart, was longing to be back home in England. He and his partner Peter Pears, who was to be the first Grimes, soon recognised the potential for creating an opera based on Crabbeâs horrifying tale.
Financial support was supplied by a Foundation which Serge Koussevitsky, the Boston Symphony Orchestra conductor, had set up in memory of his second wife. Although many of the ideas and memorable phrases came from Pears, Britten used, as librettist, Montagu Slater, a communist journalist and poet. Britten was prone to change libretti to suit what he wanted or had already composed. Although other great composers have also done this, the relationship with Slater was rocky.
Britten had originally wanted a libretto from the novelist Christopher Isherwood, best known for Mr Norris Changes Trains, but the invitation was turned down bluntly: the subject did not excite Isherwood enough âthat he wanted to make time for itâ. This was probably a stroke of luck: in a tortuous way, Slater, although âresistant to change and slow in delivering agreed revisionsâ, generated what Britten wanted, and he gave constructive advice. The strong-willed composer took all the decisions. A libretto handed over by the more prominent Isherwood might have been a fait accompli, and very difficult to change.
An astonishing amount of effort and redrafting went into relentlessly developing the text. There were long sessions between Slater, producer Eric Crozier, Britten and Pears; they went over it line by line. Even after the score was finished in February 1945, Britten wrote, âPeter & I are pretty well rewriting his part ⌠Montagu has agreed to the new Mad Scene.â The result was an opera very different from the poem; indeed, âan independent masterpiece, with a life of its own.â
The âspectacularly triumphantâ première of Peter Grimes was on 7 June 1945, exactly a month after VE (Victory in Europe) Day.3 It marked the reopening of the Sadlerâs Wells Theatre.
Brittenâs own image was tainted with his having been a conscientious objector during the war. Some have suggested that his pacifism was the motivating force for the opera. Peter Pears said that in the early stages of planning the opera, the sea stood for war and the horrors of war. Others have asserted, especially in more recent times, that Peter Grimes represents an endeavour to win sympathy for homosexuality, at a time when homosexuals were excluded and lonely because their sexuality was illegal and openly attacked.4 However, there is no attempt to portray Grimes himself as homosexual.
Aldeburgh in Suffolk, on the East Coast of England, is to the north of the modern port of Felixstowe, and some 30 miles south of Brittenâs birthplace, Lowestoft. It is located on a narrow strip of sand and gravel that lies between a river and the North Sea, by which it is relentlessly pounded, eroded and silted up. At a time when its struggle with the geographical consequences of a changing climate permitted, it was a prosperous port with its own parliamentary representation. E.M. Forster surprisingly called it âa bleak little place ⌠not beautifulâ, whereas in fact it has great charm, redolent of Brittenâs comic opera Albert Herring. Aldeburgh produced Britainâs first female qualified doctor of medicine, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (1836â1917). BACK
The lonely, timeless sea,5 and Brittenâs haunting musical description, provide the cruel backdrop for the town and the relentless struggle of those whose livelihood depends on it. Britten and Pears âimagined the sea as being in the orchestra, so it was not necessary to see it on the stage.â
The bustling little fishing town, depicted around 1830, provides a complete contrast, which those who know the sea will understand. Britten realistically and wittily paints the town: its pub brawls and barn dances, its hypocrisy and sanctimoniousness, its pomposity. We see the irreproachable mayor (and the apothecary) chasing the âniecesâ of the pub landlady; the drunken Methodist leering at them; the ineffectual parson, the rich widow addicted to opium, and so on. Dr Crabbe himself is even included as a walk-on part. And we have the dark side: the hysteria, busybodies, and lynch-mobs being whipped up into a frenzy.
Peter Grimes, one of the townâs fishermen, is a loner and âdifferentâ. But he longs for social acceptance, which he will attain through material success, and by marrying the retired schoolmistress. Whereas Crabbeâs Grimes was simply a thug, or âloutâ as Forster called him, Brittenâs is more complex. He is a visionary, a âmisunderstood Byronic heroâ. The cruel, lonely sea and the sky provide âa metaphor for Grimesâs subconsciousâ, or at least that second side of his personality.
Britten, himself an individual in conflict with the society to which he had returned from America, related to Grimes. For, as well as being at odds with the town, Grimes is at odds with himself. He is tormented by the censure of The Borough and his own moral conscience. The Borough â society â though claiming it âlives and lets liveâ, nevertheless determines to destroy him because he does not conform.
With Brittenâs reputation for pacifism and homosexuality, there was unease backstage and considerable apprehension at the time of the première: many of the company were ex-servicemen. Besides, there was considerable hostility to such âa piece of cacophonyâ. Joan Cross (the first Ellen) remembered the moment on the first night when the curtain came down: there was silence, then the shouting broke out. Some of those on stage wondered if it was a demonstration! It wasnât: it was applause.
Today, an audience is still left almost drained at the end. What is so shocking, so compelling about Peter Grimes? Is it the music which infuses the words so beautifully and clearly? Is it the accident to Boy John, or the suicide to avoid a lynching? Or is it that the sinner is society itself, not Grimes, and that it is the community â including perhaps the audience â which is to blame? Or is it just the moral perplexity engendered by feeling sorry for a bully, âan outlaw and an enemy of societyâ?
The audience is left wondering, and troubled. When Grimes is told by Balstrode to go and sink himself in his boat, âyou feel that you are in the same boat as him.â
Sir Geraint Evans, the baritone, wrote, âTo me Peter Grimes is a truly fantastic opera and makes a thrilling evening in the theatre. I mentioned this once to Ben, and all he said was: âCanât stand it now!ââ Britten, like Grimes, was enigmatic as well. Ironically, it is possibly because Grimes is such a complex character, because we suspect that there is âsomething of a Grimes in each one of usâ, and because we do not really feel confident that we know what this seemingly simple story is actually about, that the opera is so successful dramatically.
Benjamin Britten (1913â1976) was born on St Ceciliaâs Day, 22 November. His father was a dentist in Lowestoft, on the East Anglian coast, where the family lived in a house facing the sea. Britten felt that he had his roots there and had a nostalgic longing for it when he spent time elsewhere. He was educated at Greshamâs School, Holt, studied under the composer Frank Bridge and was briefly at the Royal College of Music. He began by earning his living largely from editing film unit music. After some difficult relationships, around 1936â1937 Britten met Peter Pears, who was about three-and-a-half years older than him. They fell in love and settled down to a stable relationship. Britten and Pears set out for the USA in April 1939. They lived with, among others, W.H. Auden and E.M. Forster. But Britten longed for his roots, and when they returned in 1943, the pair registered as conscientious objectors and gave concerts. At the start of 1944, Britten began composing Peter Grimes.
Britten formed the English Opera Group. This led to the foundation, in June 1948, of the Festival at Aldeburgh, where he lived with Pears. Compositions poured forth, such as The Rape of Lucretia, Albert Herring, Billy Budd, The Turn of the Screw, A Midsummer Nightâs Dream. Gloriana was written to mark the Queenâs Coronation in 1953. One of his most significant works was the War Requiem written for the consecration of the reconstructed Coventry Cathedral.
Speaking about the 1930s, the daughter of Peter Grimes librettist Montagu Slater said that Britten was unpredictable, irritable. She was ânever su...