6 days to the Peter Grimes premiere!

Montagu Slater’s libretto to Peter Grimes is based on the poem The Borough by the English poet and naturalist George Crabbe (1754–1832). Itself based on Crabbe’s personal experiences and first published in 1810, the poem consists of 24 sections, or “letters,” describing various aspects of life in the Borough and telling the stories of a number of its inhabitants. Letter XXII, some 3000 words in length, deals with the tale of Peter Grimes. Here’s an excerpt, roughly corresponding to the prologue of the opera.

One day such draughts the cruel fisher made,
He could not vend them in his borough-trade,
But sail’d for London-mart: the boy was ill,
But ever humbled to his master’s will;
And on the river, where they smoothly sail’d,
He strove with terror and awhile prevail’d;
But new to danger on the angry sea,
He clung affrighten’d to his master’s knee:
The boat grew leaky and the wind was strong,
Rough was the passage and the time was long;
His liquor fail’d, and Peter’s wrath arose—
No more is known—the rest we must suppose,
Or learn of Peter.—Peter says, he “spied
The stripling’s danger and for harbour tried;
Meantime the fish, and then th’ apprentice died.”

Thus by himself compell’d to live each day,
To wait for certain hours the tide’s delay;
At the same times the same dull views to see,
The bounding marsh-bank and the blighted tree;
The water only, when the tides were high,
When low, the mud half-cover’d and half-dry;
The sun-burnt tar that blisters on the planks,
And bank-side stakes in their uneven ranks;
Heaps of entangled weeds that slowly float,
As the tide rolls by the impeded boat.

To read the complete poem, go to www.gutenberg.org.

7 days to the Peter Grimes premiere!

Peter Grimes played a key role in Donald Palumbo’s life. Early in his career, the Met’s chorus master was hired by the Dallas Opera to work on Britten’s score. “They needed someone to do it because their chorus master was an Italian who spoke ten words of English,” Palumbo recalls, coming from a Grimes rehearsal in List Hall, just across the hallway from his Met office. “But he turned out to be one of the greatest chorus masters of the 20th century, Roberto Benaglio. At the time, he had retired from La Scala and was doing the Dallas job because he was friends with the music director. So I came into contact with this man, and that basically changed my life.”

Today, Palumbo is teaching Grimes to the Met chorus. In the story of the opera, the chorus almost takes on the identity of a character of its own, as the conductor points out. “Grimes takes the action and the chorus responds to it,” he says. “And the way the town reacts to Peter Grimes is the crux of the story. There is this hysteria that has crept into the town.” The hostile atmosphere comes across in the music from the very first moments of the opera. “In the courtroom scene, there’s just these mutterings of discontent,” Palumbo explains. “The way the music is written it starts very low and it builds and builds and builds, and then it dies away again—like they don’t dare utter these things, they don’t want to go out on a limb too far, but they certainly have these feelings. And then it builds and builds and builds again until the scene where they finally decide to go after Grimes.” Another important aspect of the choral writing in Peter Grimes is the way Britten creates mood and color. “After the court scene there’s an interlude,” Palumbo continues, “and then we have to somehow paint a picture of this town waking up, a town that’s all geared around the sea. In the delivery of the text the choral writing has to convey the location. Just like the orchestra ‘plays’ the sea in the Sea Interludes, we have to present the picture of a community that is tied to the sea. The sound of the chorus has to have that flexibility to convey the water. And then later in the storm sequence, everything is very angular and aggressive and rhythmic in the chorus. The chorus has its own storm scene, just like the orchestral storm scene. So we try to vocally create these sounds in the choral writing. It’s a fascinating piece, there are so many little segments to it.”

8 days to the Peter Grimes premiere!

On the eve of rehearsals for the new production of Britten’s opera, Anthony Dean Griffey talked about the title character and taking on one of the most challenging tenor roles in the repertoire.

On singing Peter Grimes at the Met
This is my tenth anniversary! When I was a young artist here in the Lindemann Program ten years ago I was the second cover for Philip Langridge and went on to sing one performance of Peter Grimes. Ironically, I don’t remember a lot about that night. It happened and I think I was just caught up in the moment of making sure that I was at the right place at the right time. So it’s very exciting that now is the first time the piece has been back to the Met and I get to actually step into the shoes of Peter Grimes and sing the whole run. I’m quite excited about it.

On working with John Doyle
John and I did Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny in Los Angeles together last season. I love his style, which is a very open approach. He likes to see what an artist brings to the table and then he’s like a painter and uses different colors within the canvas. It’s great because it’s very much a give and take, an open relationship. With John it’s about removing the layers, keeping the honesty, and letting the true character shine through.

On the character of Peter Grimes
I don’t see him so much as a criminal. That’s up to the audience to decide. I believe innocent until proven guilty. Grimes has no social skills and he doesn’t know how to express himself. It’s the extreme—it’s either his outbursts of anger or he becomes very introverted and doesn’t talk. There’s very little in between. He’s definitely an outcast. That’s something I am close to because I’ve done work with homeless people. I do a fund-raiser every other Christmas with Open Door Shelter, so I’ve been around people who are outcasts and I’ve seen how they get out of touch with society. They need to be embraced and they need to feel like it’s okay to be who they are. I don’t think I know Peter Grimes has the same wants and desires that we all have. He says, “I’ll marry Ellen”—he wants the children and the picket fence and the garden in the back. But he doesn’t know how to get those things. And when the whole town gangs up on him, he loses sight of that dream and becomes very dark and introverted and retreats back into himself. Relating it to today’s society, I think that we need to reach out to people. So for me, Grimes is a role that’s close to my heart. I feel that it has a strong impact and really should make the listener in their seat a little uncomfortable.