INTERNATIONAL
Peter Grimes
TEATRO REAL, MADRID
There were 14 curtain calls for Benjamin Britten—immaculate in white tie and tails—and his Peter Grimes at Sadler’s Wells in June 1945. The thunderous applause in London quickly drew the attention of the rest of the world, and within three years, Grimes filled theatres from Stockholm to Hamburg, Berlin to Zurich, Milan to New York. With this success, Britten’s first serious opéra became a masterpiece of the 20th century. It was Peter Pears who created the part of Grimes; later it would be Canada’s own Jon Vickers who made the tragic social misfit a signature role.
Britten’s inspiration was a mid-18thcentury poem by George Crabbe who hailed from the “bleak… melancholy and flat, expanses of mud.., the marsh-birds crying” coast of south east England, as described by the composer’s friend and acclaimed novelist of the times, E.M. Forster. For this new production at the Teatro Real, shared with London, Paris and Rome, Deborah Warner and Canadian set designer Michael Levine maintain that atmosphere but bring the action forward to today. Warner sees nothing sentimental in the poverty of the fishing industry; rather it is the overwhelming misery of these coastal towns which is the essential element here. Lighting (Peter Mumford) the stage with dull streetlights or menacing flashlights, the well-oiled Warner and Levine tandem create a community of village gossips, drunken louts in trainers by the beach bonfire, young girls in tight skirts and leather jackets, and hooligans either sheltering from the storm in the pub, or burning an effigy. With a minimum of props—assorted litter, ropes, or large coloured plastic bins for the fish—we see a town of tawdry boarded up shops. These crude scenes are extremely effective for they illustrate life itself. On the other hand, this production never forgets the sea. It is present as an ostinato in the luminous grey background, in the slow movement of the apprentices falling to their deaths, or in the large crowd scenes which move ever so effectively across the stage in unison, back to front, right to left, evoking waves.
On Apr. 29th, Allan Clayton was outstanding in his title role debut, a veritable successor to Ben Heppner. When he first appears, it’s as though Grimes were a bloated fish, twitching back and forth, trapped in the net of his sorry life while being interrogated by the townsfolk. Vocally, the tenor emphasized anguish over violence. “Now the Great Bear and Pleiades” and the hallucinations of the last act were hauntingly eloquent moments indeed. Unlike E.M. Forster who would have “starred the murdered apprentices” had he written the opéra libretto himself, we forgive Clayton’s devastated Grimes as he tenderly wraps little John’s body. Maria Bengtsson was the devoted schoolmistress Ellen. Her beautiful voice tore at our hearts in its impassioned desperation to save Grimes, and her childhood “Embroidery Aria” of Act III was exquisite in its resignation. Christopher Purves, an experienced and firmly-toned Captain Balstrode, was exemplary as he maintained a fine balance between friendship and a concern for Grime’s safety, culminating in a powerful “We shall
