The Classical Music Book

292 20TH-CENTURY BRITISH OPERA

The main characters in Peter Grimes

Foes Friends

Mrs. Sedley (mezzo soprano)

Town gossip

Peter Grimes

The antihero, he is violent,

solitary, and an outsider.

Ellen Orford (soprano)

A schoolteacher who sees the

good in Grimes and wants to

marry him.

Auntie (contralto)

Landlady of the pub

Swallow (bass)

Lawyer

Bob Boles (tenor)

A fisherman and a Methodist

The Townspeople

(chorus)

Captain Balstrode

(baritone) Retired sea captain

Ned Keene

(baritone) Apothecary

because of their love for one

another—homosexuality being

illegal in Britain until 1967.

Ovations for a masterpiece

The first performance of Britten’s

Peter Grimes took place at the

Sadler’s Wells Theatre on June 7,

1945. The composer and conductor
      Imogen Holst, who was later a
      codirector of the Aldeburgh
      Festival, recalled the thrill of the
      occasion: “No one in the audience
      will ever forget the excitement of
      that evening,” she wrote. When
      the tragedy had reached its quiet
      end and the opera was over, she
      sensed that the audience knew
      they had been listening to a
      masterpiece: “They stood up
      and shouted and shouted.”
      The popularity of the opera lay
      partly in its psychological drama
      and depth of characterizaton. A
      complex, lonely, and tormented

fisherman, Peter Grimes has just

been cleared of the death of an

apprentice but is warned not to

seek a replacement. Faced with the

townspeople’s hostility, Grimes

yearns in vain for love and simple

domesticity with his friend Ellen

Orford, a widowed schoolmistress,

but the relationship is halting.

In the prologue’s duet “The truth ...

the pity ... and the truth,” Ellen

sings in the bright E major chord

while Grimes begins in F minor.

Gradually, Grimes gives way to

Ellen, and the pair are in unison,

but it does not last.

In defiance of local opinion,

Grimes procures a new apprentice,

and his fate is sealed. When Ellen

spots a bruise and accuses him of

mistreating the boy, local people

see Grimes strike her then leave.

Forming a lynch mob, they advance

on Grimes’s clifftop hut to a drum

beat suggesting impending doom

but find nothing amiss as Grimes

is away fishing. His apprentice,

however, has fallen down the cliff

to his death. His jersey is later

found washed ashore, and the mob

advances on the hut once more.

Doomed, Grimes rows out to sea

and sinks his boat. The opera ends

He wished for one to

trouble and control;

he wanted some obedient

boy to stand and bear the

blow of his outrageous hand.

Peter Grimes

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