Metropolitan Opera Archives

In an air tense with expectation, the audience at the Boston Opera House last night witnessed, with mixed emotions, the local premier of Benjamin Britten’s unique “Peter Grimes.” One couple, breathing fire, stormed up the aisle during the middle of the first act and were never seen again. But most of the listeners remained – their enthusiasm mounting – to applaud the most original operatic work since the days of Puccini.

Produced by the Metropolitan Opera Association, Britten’s work was superbly mounted and convincingly portrayed. The British composer completed it in 1945 on a commission by the Koussevitsky Music Foundation. The text, based on George Crabbe’s poem, “The Borough,” was written by Montague Slater. “Peter Grimes” had its American premiere at Tanglewood in August 1946.

Set in a small fishing town on the East Coast of England about 1830, the story deals with a cruel, ambitions fisherman, who is eager to establish himself in the community and to marry Ellen Orford, the schoolmistress. His avarice drives him to overwork two boy apprentices, both of whom perish thorough mistreatment.

Mob hysteria takes hold of the community, and the townsfolk set out with clubs to track down Grimes. He is discovered, half-crazed, by Ellen and Captain Balstrode, while the mob is shouting in the distance, the Captain orders Grimes to get into his boat and set sail.

“Sail out till you lose sight of the Moot Hall,” he said, “then sink the boat. You’ll know what to do. Good-bye Peter.” Dawn then comes gently to the Borough. The posse give up its hopeless search. Daily routine is resumed.

Britten employs a wealth of unusual orchestral effects, but he always uses them to support the austerity of the story. His angular melodies and wind-swept harmonies capture the essence of the sea and folk who live by the sea. His between-scene interludes carry aloft the story orchestrally, giving unity and continuity to the work, His depiction of the storm between the two scenes of Act One was griping in its fury and changing rhythms.

Brian Sullivan as Peter Grimes took hold of the restless melodies stanchly, his virile tenor ringing through the tonal waves of the instrumental sea. Polyna Stoska as Ellen sang dramatically, yet compassionately. Her last act aria was especially impressive.

The English diction, however, was poor and argued very little toward the cause of opera in English. No single singer was totally exempt from this flaw; the strophic choruses were disturbingly fuzzy in enunciation. Even with leaps of a tenth, Britten’s writing is vocal. There is no valid reason why the words shouldn’t come across.

Other fine performances were turned in by John Brownlee as Captain Balstrode; Jean Browning Madeira, Paul Lenchner, Maxine Stellman and Martha Lipton. Special mention should be made of P. J. Smither’s good work in the nonspeaking role of Grimes’ apprentice.

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