Britten Operas

[Wendell_E]

PS, I've been looking for a photo of the removed scene...if I can find one I'll post it.

--Bruce

This is the set model the Met had its website:

[bhodges]

Oh thanks a million, Wendell!  Ever since the news broke today of the scene's deletion, I've been fielding e-mails from people wondering what it looked like.

--Bruce

[Wendell_E]

Oh thanks a million, Wendell!  Ever since the news broke today of the scene's deletion, I've been fielding e-mails from people wondering what it looked like.

--Bruce

You're welcome.  This isn't the first time a Met production's made some major changes after opening night.  The same thing happened with Graham Vick's Il Trovatore in 2000.  Volpe called that production one of the major mistakes of his regime, and it's being replaced next season.  Here's part of one review (from Variety):

So dire was the response to some of Vick's choices that by the third performance the most egregiously quirky bits of staging had been eliminated. No longer does Neil Shicoff reach for that high C in "Di quella pira" while borne aloft, clinging to a moon-shaped contraption. No longer does his Manrico come to the rescue of Leonora via a cross-shaped ramp that emerges, Murphy bed-style, from one of the two massive panels that dominate Paul Brown's set designs.

That entrance inspired laughter on opening night, but its excision leaves behind a new peculiarity, as the audience is left to ponder the significance of the unmistakable upside-down crucifix cut into the fabric of the wall. There are a few other oddities left over -- the calla lilies Inez must determinedly plant in the stage for the Conte di Luna to swipe with his sword -- but what was formerly an arrestingly bizarre production is now just a rather ponderous and clumsy one.

[bhodges]

Ah, I vaguely recall that Trovatore change.  (I don't recall seeing the production--and now I guess, never will.)  Interesting how a good director can, of course, have a misfire.  Vick's productions of Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and Schoenberg's Moses und Aron (for the Met) are terrific (IMHO).

--Bruce

[Susan de Visne]

The set is based on the "net huts" in the town of Hastings in East Sussex in England, where John Doyle, the director, lives, even though the opera is actually set in Aldeburgh. They were used by fishermen to store nets and fishing tackle.



I think the idea is that they look claustrophobic, like the Borough.

[bhodges]

Thanks for posting that photo, Susan, which says volumes.  It is a very claustrophobic set, and I think, a brilliant conceit, but apparently Doyle is taking some heat for the production.  At the press conference for the new season yesterday, a critic asked Peter Gelb, "Do you plan on learning from your two most egregious mistakes, namely Mary Zimmerman and John Doyle?" 

Too bad.  And it doesn't bode well for the reappearance of this opera here, either.

--Bruce

[Anne]

The set is based on the "net huts" in the town of Hastings in East Sussex in England, where John Doyle, the director, lives, even though the opera is actually set in Aldeburgh. They were used by fishermen to store nets and fishing tackle.



I think the idea is that they look claustrophobic, like the Borough.

I like this set.  One can believe it is a fishing village.  What more could we ask?  Now if the costumes can only complement this set instead of being business suits or similar, this will be a great opera to watch.

[Susan de Visne]

I'm not sure, Anne, if you think the photo I posted is the actual set of the opera. It isn't, but it's a photo of the real town which the set is based on.

The costumes for the production look fine - nobody in modern dress!

[bhodges]

The costumes appear to be stylized versions of fishermen's storm jackets, with sea creatures embedded in them.  (The effect was hard to discern the other night; maybe the film version will show this more clearly.)

--Bruce

[Anne]

Glad to hear that, Bruce.  Thanks for clearing the confusion.  Have you seen the DVD with John Vickers as Peter?  It also has Heather Harper.  I know Vickers' concept of the role was different than Britten's but I really liked it.  That is a very worthwhile DVD if you haven't already seen it.

[bhodges]

Glad to hear that, Bruce.  Thanks for clearing the confusion.  Have you seen the DVD with John Vickers as Peter?  It also has Heather Harper.  I know Vickers' concept of the role was different than Britten's but I really liked it.  That is a very worthwhile DVD if you haven't already seen it.

Well, browsing for photos of the costumes, I can't find any of the ones with the sea motifs! 

Actually I haven't seen that DVD, and should, since I have the CD version.  I'm not sure if it's exactly the same production, but it's also Vickers and Harper, with Davis conducting.

--Bruce

[Anne]

Well, browsing for photos of the costumes, I can't find any of the ones with the sea motifs! 

Actually I haven't seen that DVD, and should, since I have the CD version.  I'm not sure if it's exactly the same production, but it's also Vickers and Harper, with Davis conducting.

--Bruce

I think the CD's and DVD are the same performance.  You will not be sorry if you get the DVD; it is terrific.

[(poco) Sforzando]

The huts shown in SdV's photo look far more convincing than the photos of the Met's set. But what I honestly don't understand is the need for a new production in the first place. The Met has done Grimes only 74 times since 1949, and this is the third production. The one I saw at least twice that I can recall - once for sure with the great Vickers, who owned the part for two decades and sang it 40 times there - was superb. This one - well, I'm in no hurry to see it, though I may go to the movie.

Another very long personal review, with debate:
http://oberon481.typepad.com/oberons_grove/

BTW, the Met's first Grimes was not Peter Pears (who sang at the Met only in Death in Venice and Budd - another superlative Met production - a magnificent evocation of a sailing ship - done there only 44 times, so I'm sure it's due to be replaced by an inferior one in a year or two), but an American tenor named Brian Sullivan. Little known today, he was an extraordinarily handsome young man who did very well at the Met for some seasons, but for reasons I can't recall in much detail he had many personal problems and eventually committed suicide. (A little more research on line suggests he was starting to have vocal problems in his later seasons.) Here's what he could do, along with Roberta Peters and Eleanor Steber:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc6Ga9DtRqE

[bricon]

I think the CD's and DVD are the same performance. 

The audio recording was recorded throughout April 1978; the video release (DVD) was recorded at a performance on 30 June 1981.

The principal casts are almost the same - the major change was that the role of Balstrode was sung by Jonathon Summers on the audio set and Norman Bailey performs the role on the video release.

Bailey was originally scheduled to singthe role on the audio recording but he was indisposed at the time and replaced by Summers for the recording.

[Wendell_E]

At the press conference for the new season yesterday, a critic asked Peter Gelb, "Do you plan on learning from your two most egregious mistakes, namely Mary Zimmerman and John Doyle?" 

Well, Zimmerman's supposed to direct La Sonnambula next season, so I guess the answer is 'no'.  Of course, originally the plan was that the Met would present Trevor Nunn's Salzburg production of Grimes, so plans can change.

BTW, the Met's first Grimes was not Peter Pears ... but an American tenor named Brian Sullivan.

Actually, the Met's first Grimes was Frederick Jagel, who sang five of the six performances the Met did of the opera in 1948.  Sullivan made his Met debut in the third performance (that was his Met appearance in the entire season), and returned next season and sang all the performances of the opera.

I know even less about Jagel than I know about Sullivan.  The name looks German, but he was American (born in Brooklyn) and sang leading roles at the Met from 1927 to 1950, mostly in the Italian and French repertories.

[Anne]

The audio recording was recorded throughout April 1978; the video release (DVD) was recorded at a performance on 30 June 1981.

The principal casts are almost the same - the major change was that the role of Balstrode was sung by Jonathon Summers on the audio set and Norman Bailey performs the role on the video release.

Bailey was originally scheduled to singthe role on the audio recording but he was indisposed at the time and replaced by Summers for the recording.

bricon,

Thanks for the correction.  The performances seemed so similar that I thought they were the same.

[Anne]

I'm not sure, Anne, if you think the photo I posted is the actual set of the opera. It isn't, but it's a photo of the real town which the set is based on.

The costumes for the production look fine - nobody in modern dress!

Susan,
I apologize for mistaking your photo for Bruce's.  What I meant was that if the actual set was modeled after that picture, I didn't see how they could go wrong.  The photo was so natural-looking for a fishing village.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Actually, the Met's first Grimes was Frederick Jagel, who sang five of the six performances the Met did of the opera in 1948.  Sullivan made his Met debut in the third performance (that was his Met appearance in the entire season), and returned next season and sang all the performances of the opera.

Oops. You're right. Well, be that as it may, Olin Downes of the Times didn't like it much:

Review of Olin Downes in The New York Times

THREE NEW LEADS IN 'PETER GRIMES'

Sullivan, in Debut, Stoska and Harrell Appear in Britten Work at Metropolitan

It is sometimes regrettable that news requirements make it essential to review the first performance of a new opera off the bat - on immediate contact, for the morning after. Because the second performance is so likely to be better, more secure, more eloquent, and therefore, to do more justice to the composition. Now the first "Peter Grimes" at the Metropolitan was good. The second, last night, was still better.

There were three new principals in leading parts and they did very well. They were Brian Sullivan, who then made his Metropolitan debut, in the title part. Polyna Stoska, the Ellen Orford, and Mack Harrell, Captain Balstrode. But it was in the fluency and authority of this second performance that the greatest difference was made. The chorus was more brilliant. The secondary parts stood out more effectively. The audience listened with courtesy and a reasonable degree of enthusiasm, which, however, was not equal to that of the Metropolitan premiere. The Metropolitan can say that twice in succession "Peter Grimes" has met with the favor of its patrons. For all that, the writer thinks less of this opera every time that he hears it.

This is the impression of last night in spite of the dramatic address and the spirited singing of Mr. Sullivan in a difficult role; the freshness of Miss Stoska's voice and her sincerity in interpretation, and the further fact that Mr. Harrell does all that can readily be done to make the character of the bluff and hearty Balstrode plausible. There is also the mass effect of the chorus singing -- very good, where this particular feature is concerned.

Opera is Artificial

But the opera simply does not ring true. It is artificial in its make-up. The composer knows a great deal and he has a certain style. This is the style - we did not say the music, which is essentially unoriginal - of Benjamin Britten. He is a brilliant technician and orchestrator, but not as yet, in our belief, an opera composer. His choruses come out of Mussorgsky, as does his drunken preacher in the hostelry scene. But, these are really oratorio choruses, of a well-behaved people - people far indeed from the revolting peasants of Mussorgsky. No one believes in this chorus of villagers who go off yelling such a yodel as no English villagers on land or sea ever yodeled, led by a man who loudly whacks a drum, with the ostensible intention of punishing Grimes, in another scene.

The libretto is just as unnatural. The language is not that of the common people of a British seaport, though an unseemly oath or two is tucked in just to show how jolly democratic these characters can be. The prevailing tone of the poetry is very affected and not dramatic, and there isn't a real character in the lot of them. Peter is the central figure, but he, too, is a straw man of tragedy. He has not been born - only invented. He distresses us, but does not arouse sympathy. The other characters are nothing at all.

A Conventional Opera

And this opera is just as conventional as any other. A man draws a knife. Someone cries "For heaven's make a song," or words to that effect, and someone jumps on a table and intones an elaborately contrapuntal catch in seven-four time. We have just as soon or sooner have listened to a melting Italian aria in this place, which at least would have furnished a good time. The church chorus is an old cliché done better in a dozen French or Italian operas. The use of the old forms such as the passacaglia between acts is a Bergian device which is too regimented and too deliberately adapted either to keep up dramatic motion or make one feel that there was any reason for the passacaglia than there might have been for a toccata or ricercare. They were old forms too, and just about as unnecessary and inappropriate in a modern opera which professes to unite psychology, realism and symbolical situations.

The solo voice parts are seldom convincing either as emotional song or as melodic declamation. For the prosody is poor, making good diction difficult and sometimes impossible. The orchestral music is the best part of the score, and the sea music the most plausible, skillfully colored and of a scenic flavor. We used to think it more. We feel increasingly doubtful about "Peter Grimes." The public will decide its fate. We doubt, if operatic history will be affected by its coming or its going.

[Sarastro]

I will try to get to the theater which maintains the telecast, too.
Last time I went to watch "Manon Lescaut," the shooting was bad - cameras were very close to the singers, almost creeping in their mouths. That was distracting. I think they should show more zoomed out views.

[knight66]

Poor critic; I recall one report from the premier of Tannhauser that claimed with authority; there was NO melody in the entire piece. Tin-ear or what?

There is always this difficult balance in opera between the highly artificial art-form and the naturalness many composers strive to put across. When it works there is surely nothing more dramatic or moving. I have seen Grimes work superbly several times. That critic clearly has no idea of the savagery and neurosis of people that lies just below the surface; even amongst those who live in an English village. In any case, this is no twee thatched cottage enclave; but more one where the lives are tough, the work hard and dirty, the mindset peasant narrow.

Mike