In the years since its premiere in 1945, Britten’s opera has been steadfastly produced as close to the English coast of Aldeburgh and the world of seaside villagers as possible. The music demands the sounds of the sea and the voices of lonely fishing towns. The production we viewed from ROH continued that tradition. How would it work in a different setting?
Several past and recent productions are contrasted in this article, including the one we’re confronting.
In 2012, British director Richard Jones, famous for rethinking operas, produced at Milan’s La Scala (famous for traditional productions) a version of Peter Grimes that divided critics and audiences – and will doubtless divide our group when we show it this week!
A triumph, forcing us to think anew about the opera? This critic says so.
"Entrusting Britten's masterpiece to maverick director Richard Jones, and designer Stewart Laing, was never going to result in a cosy recreation of a 19th Century fishing town in East Anglia, and given that the opera hadn't been seen in Milan since the ‘80s, this was a calculated risk, but one that has paid off handsomely.
Jones updates the action to the ‘80s, successfully creating a society that is at turns downtrodden, suspicious and need in of a scapegoat on whom it can vent its pent up frustration. Stewart Laing's designs evoke the desperation of the times, the multiple changes of location are deftly handled so that the scenes in the courtroom, and Grimes' hut have the necessary sense of claustrophobia whilst the outdoor scenes have the necessary room to breathe.
The Chorus, such a vital protagonist in this opera, is treated very much like a Greek chorus – slightly distanced from the action throughout - their positioning in the pub scene seems deliberately Brechtian in its alienation from the principles and action, yet the Chorus of La Scala sings superbly, getting all their words across, and making it sound as though they sing this kind of repertoire every day of their lives, which of course they don't."
A pointless ripping of the opera from its context? This critic is furious!
"The late-twentieth-century setting is both alienating in its ugliness and perplexing in its lack of relevance. Temporal relocations are all very well provided they have something to say both about the work and the time – as was the case with Jones’s recent 1953-ish Gloriana for the Royal Opera. But whither the coastal communities of 1980s’ Suffolk?"
But the singers triumph over the production…
"As Grimes, John Graham-Hall is every bit as intense as he was in ENO’s recent revival of Britten’s Death in Venice. He willingly forsakes beauty of tone for a total identification with his character, which is no mean achievement when he is obliged to interact with so faceless an Apprentice. Graham-Hall’s eyes alone tell a thousand stories and he projects the fisherman’s inner demons with such concentration that even the improbable poetry of “Now the Great Bear and Pleiades” convinces. He is a sailor with no sea (water is conspicuous by its absence from Stewart Laing’s designs) so the moment of scuppering – he exits through a moot hall window – may even be an existential act of departure."
Get a taste of the atmosphere and the handling of Britten’s music here – the scene in the pub where the ‘Old Joe has gone fishing…’ The words are here, and their significance clear in this production.
Lyn, 25/10/22