Prom 55 (24.8.12): Britten – Peter Grimes

[Mary Chambers]

It sounds wonderful! Thank you very much for your descriptions, and I'm glad to hear that the hall was more or less full. There'll be a few Britten converts (and no doubt a few puzzled people wondering what on earth it was all about).

[Maclintick]

It sounds wonderful! Thank you very much for your descriptions, and I'm glad to hear that the hall was more or less full. There'll be a few Britten converts (nad no doubt a few puzzled people wondering what on earth it was all about).

Terrific performances from Stuart Skelton - a Grimes very much in the Vickers tradition - Iain Paterson as Balstrode, sporting a comically Captain Birdseye-ish titfer, and the Living National Treasure that is Dame Felicity. Amanda Roocroft an affecting but diction-free Ellen, as other MB-ers have commented, though it wasn't entirely her fault that her schoolmistressly colloquy with the mute apprentice in the Sunday Morning scene was largely obliterated by over-enthusiastic contributions from the onstage chorus/congregation and organist, in what was the only real miscalculation of the evening. Later, the chorus delivered the eerie self-accusations as Grimes descends to madness very effectively by covering their mouths. Strong presences in the smaller roles:Leigh Melrose outstanding as Ned Keene. Nieces properly flirty but not exactly scaling the heights in the devastating but fiendishly difficult quartet "From the gutter" with Auntie and Ellen (who has ?). Philip Brett's excellent programme note mentioned the parallels here with Strauss's trio of women in "Der Rosenkavalier" and Britten's hope, in a note to his ( & Strauss's ) publisher Ralph Hawkes, of learning from the older composer, though one imagines this related only to technical aspects, as later he expressed disgust at Strauss's voyeuristic enjoyment of the "lesbianism" inherent in the Octavian/Marschallin relationship to Graham Johnson -- quoted in Humphrey Carpenter's pithy but controversial biog. Well, Britten wouldn't be likely to trash a stable-mate Boosey & Hawkes composer to the boss, now, would he ? Ed Gardner and the orchestra were marvellous -- wonderful viola solo in that fateful Passacaglia -- and altogether an unmissable evening.

[BBMmk2]

Maclintick, thank you for your review of the Prom, which i thought the samew as you did.I am not an ?amanda Roocroft fan, i'm afraid.there are not many sopranos I like anyway. Bu all in all, not a bad performance of Grimes. Liked you said the chorus and organist did rather spioil AR's voice a bit.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

and the Living National Treasure that is Dame Felicity.

Sorry, but I couldn't agree less with you on this point. But then, singers' voices always will be a ver personal thing - take Peter Pears for example. I first heard FP in an Opera North performance of Don Giovanni, many years ago. Since then, nothing has made me like her voice any better, including her Elgar recordings. However, I do appreciate her phenominal technique.

[Don Petter]

Maclintick, thank you for your review of the Prom, which i thought the samew as you did.I am not an ?amanda Roocroft fan, i'm afraid.there are not many sopranos I like anyway. Bu all in all, not a bad performance of Grimes. Liked you said the chorus and organist did rather spioil AR's voice a bit.

I got in the car to drive home just before Act Two started. I didn't know who the Ellen was, but found her screeching tone far too painful, and switched off. I now know to avoid Ms Roocroft!

[bluestateprommer]

Just finished hearing it on iPlayer, and I can imagine the impact this performance must have made live and in person, based on what came through my computer speakers. The biggest debit was the iffy diction of Amanda Roocroft at times, but balancing it was her dramatic involvement, so par for the course overall. I can sort of see where some see Stuart Skelton as managing to inhabit the middle ground between the poles of Peter Pears and Jon Vickers in the role, even just by hearing without seeing anything. That must have been some sight for the Arena Prommers to make way for SS as Grimes went to his final fate. It would have been worth the whole evening just to see that moment, I expect. I would think that the Arena Prommers didn't know that this moment was coming, which of course would have made their action all the more effective. Likewise, Iain Paterson made a strong Balstrode, sounding a bit younger that what one might expect from someone like Norman Bailey or Thomas Allen.

I hadn't heard Peter Grimes in years, so hearing this performance was a jolting reminder of how dark the work is. It also had not really sunk in how much the Moot Hall scene is reminiscent of the tavern scene in Wozzeck, for one. Hearing Bob Boles' bigoted ravings (and hypocrisy in Act I at Auntie's when he's drunk), not to mention the Borough inhabitants working themselves up into a frenzied mob in Act III, is scarily close to the current hate-soaked rhetoric of the US Republican Party, in particular the Religious Right and the Tea Party wings. It's a reminder of how scary the work is to hear a vicious lynch mob singing in one's own language, as opposed to the distancing effect of hearing an Italian or German work, i.e. opera in another language, something like the Auto-da-Fe scene in Don Carlo, which is in its way a lynch mob scene also.

Not that Grimes is a saint, far from it. I once spoke with someone about PG and the whole issue of his treatment/abuse of his apprentices, and the whole question of how far the abuse went. He said, in effect (not the exact words):

"Oh, he was guilty as hell. Of course he was."

But then this was his next comment:

"Everyone did it then."

In other words, Oliver Twist on acid?

I remember an article from The Guardian years ago where James Fenton took shots at what he sees as the opera's "immorality":

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2004/jul/03/classicalmusicandopera

To me, Fenton is unduly harsh in his judgment of Ellen Orford at the end of his article. Also, when he says that:

"Neither Britten nor Peter Pears (who sang the part) seems to have seen the difficulty."

The perhaps kinder interpretation is that Britten, Pears and Slater didn't resort to obvious moralizing and beating the audience over the head to say that one side is completely wrong and the other side is totally right. Both the scary viciousness of the Borough mob and Grimes' own violence are presented for us to judge. What Fenton also perhaps doesn't realize that if she tried to stop Peter, the mob may well have reached them, and in all likelihood would have lynched Grimes at the very least, and maybe even her. The really scary figures of the opera are Bob Boles and Mrs. Sedley, who would happily have led the lynching party.

On the subject of premature applause, while I find that concert audiences have become better at allowing a silence after a work ends quietly, my impression is that opera audiences haven't yet learnt this, and will applaud even though the conductor's baton is still raised. Some of them have come to listen to the singing, so feel they can applaud as soon as the singing stops. Or is that unfair?

For RJ, I suspect that this is a residue of people starting to applaud in opera houses as the curtain comes down on an act, even if the music is most exquisitely quiet and gentle, the classic example being the end of Act I of Der Rosenkavalier, where I suspect it's an extremely rare audience that gets to hear the end of Act I without premature applause. This problem is especially prevalent in the US at places like the Metropolitan in NYC. At least at The Proms, if the conductor can exercise reasonable control over the audience as well, you have a chance for at least a moment's silence at the end of an operatic act.

[Flosshilde]

I enjoyed reading your comments, BSP (as I usually do), & will look at the article. On the matter of premature applause at the end of an opera (act), it's not somethinh that's too bad here, but, as you say, particularly noticable on MET broadcasts. I do wonder why, if the curtain coming down is the trigger, the management insist on starting it before the music's finished? Usually the Scottish Opera productions plunge the stage into darkness when the music ends, & bring the lights back up when the applause starts. Bows are taken on stage rather than in front of the curtain.

[PhilipT]

I would think that the Arena Prommers didn't know that this moment was coming ...

Word went round the Arena Season Ticket queue beforehand that there would be audience participation at some point. This may not be unconnected with the fact that SS's mascot Pigmund the Rock Pig (Google it, I can't be bothered) had been left in the safe charge of an Arena Season Ticket holder in the front row.

I am sorry to have missed it all, but my feet gave out at the end of Act 2 and I had to leave early.

[Flosshilde]

I have, but am none the wiser - most hits seemed to be for twitter. There was an Independent article which started with this sentence -

How did a nice Australian boy with a penchant for Rugby and Formula One gain entry into that most exclusive of clubs - the rarefied world of Opera?

which suggests that the writer has missed a number of leading tenors, including, of course, Bryn Terfel.

[PhilipT]

P the RP travels the world with his master and tweets on his progress. But isn't that Julian Assange in the Arena for Peter Grimes? http://twitter.com/Pigmund_bin_ich/s...147330/photo/1

[Flosshilde]

Unfortunately this Prom isn't being given a repeat broadcast