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| GRIMES |
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| GRIMES |
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![Ellen - "The Embroidery Aria" - [Nancy Gustafson]](petergrimes/embroidery.jpg) |
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| top The lonely fisherman, Peter Grimes, as he questions his place in the universe in the contemplative aria "Now the Great Bear." In George Crabbe's narrative poem, "The Borough," published in 1810, Grimes is clearly drawn as a sadistic figure, and Benjamin Britten intended his version to be very similar. But the music makes him more complex - and more sympathetic - and subsequent generations of tenors have emphasized the poetic madness of Peter Grimes, which also changes the nature of his relationship with the townspeople. Britten reportedly loathed Jon Vickers' interpretation (the first tenor to "stray" from the composer's intent) but such is the nature of collaborative work. [tenor Anthony Dean Griffey] |
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| second row The Tavern Scene, Act I, Scene ii. Rumors and gossip are turning into suspicion, and to break up the rough mood, the landlady known as Auntie [far right] asks for help in beginning a song. Apothecary and quack Ned Keane [standing on the bench] leads the round, "Old Joe has gone fishing," with the gruff-but-kindly retired sea captain, Balstrode [front, near center] joining in. Grimes is also present and joins in the singing, but both words and tune are out of rhythm, almost of his own making, another representation of how he doesn't fit in with the villagers.
This is another opera where the chorus plays a major, almost a dominant role, in the opera. Many of the 19th century operas have a large chorus, but there, the role tends to be "chorus," where the group moves and reacts as one entity. In this opera, the group consists of sharply defined individuals - many with solo lines or parts in smaller ensembles as well as the entire group - and the choristers' ability to act as well as sing is quite important.
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| block - upper left Ellen and Peter, dream about future respectability and the restoration of Peter's good name, sometimes in tandem, more often diverging. Ellen urges Peter to conform to the behavior expected by society, while Peter refuses to be anything but what he is. [soprano Nancy Gustafson and tenor Anthony Dean Griffey] |
block - upper right Balstrode comforts Ellen as they realize that the second apprentice is missing.
[baritone Richard Stilwell with soprano Nancy Gustafson] |
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| block - lower right Villagers Ned Keane and Mrs Sedley spread rumors, with Captain Balstrode facing away from them. "Now is gossip put on trial, / now the rumours either fail / or are shouted in the wind..." [baritone John Atkins, mezzo Suzanna Guzmán, baritone Richard Stilwell] |
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| fourth row The opening scene, with Peter in the dock, establishes Peter's character as fighting against society. He is giving evidence at the investigation into the death of his young apprentice, a death Peter says was the result of an accident. The verdict is that the boy "died in accidental circumstances," hardly a clearing of Peter's name. The court advises him not to get another boy apprentice but to hire a man big enough to take care of himself. Peter denounces the court and the community for their verdict, which makes it impossible for him to earn a profit. The widow Ellen Orford, a friend of Peter's, says she'll help look out for the new boy. [tenor Anthony Dean Griffey] |
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The rehearsal process for
opera singers is different than for stage actors in the level of preparation. In the
non-operatic theatre, rehearsal generally lasts from 4 to 6 weeks, and the actors learn
their lines as they go through that time. In the opera world, the singer has learned his or her role before arriving for rehearsal - in the most generous of circumstances, at least in the U.S., that might be two and a half weeks. (In Europe, sometimes the rehearsals stretch out over a longer period of time, often, anywhere, there is literally no rehearsal at all.) Part of the difference is in the numbers of people involved to get the production to the stage, and many of those involved are union members, and time is definitely money, not to be wasted. |
| Philip Langridge rehearsed Peter for this particular production, and went on to sing the role throughout the run. But he was ill the couple of days surrounding the final dress rehearsal, so LA Opera had to either cancel the run-through (with an invited partial audience) or scramble to find a replacement... not an easy task, since not just everyone sings Grimes. | |
| Tony Griffey does, though, and although quite young, had already had a great success with the role at The Met. Fortunately for LA, he was available when they called ("available" as in, in the country). He finished a rehearsal in New York, caught the red-eye to LA, survived a hotel mix-up and managed to get about 2 hours of sleep. Then he met with the wardrobe people for fittings, spent a little time with Maestro Richard Armstrong to talk about music and interpretation, and worked for a couple of hours with the assistant director, who walked Tony through the staging. As the cast started to arrive for the evening's rehearsal, they were introduced - in opera, there's usually someone you've worked with before - then the makeup people arrived to prepare Tony for the evening, and only a little jet-lagged but running on adrenalin, he went through the performance. He said afterwards there were a couple of times he couldn't remember where the exits were (stage left? upstage? up the stairs? which direction is the sea?) but his fellow cast members helped out with eye signals, and in one case, Tony - as Peter - just pretended to be confused, which worked out just fine. | |
| fifth row - left Bob Boles inciting the crowd: "We'll make the murd'rer pay / we'll make him pay / for his crime!" [tenor Greg Fedderly] |
fifth row - right The mob's cry of "Peter Grimes! Peter Grimes!" - sung unaccompanied and fortissimo - is a spine-chilling conclusion to Act III Scene i, just before they rush away to find Peter. [tenor Greg Fedderly and mezzo Suzanna Guzmán] |
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| end sequence Peter's "Mad Scene" is a long, loosely-strung-together sequence of thoughts and memories, quotations from earlier sections in the opera, that don't quite make sense - and provide a clear image of one whose mind is on the verge of slipping away. Balstrode and Ellen reach Peter before the mob does, but Balstrode advises Peter to take his boat and sail until he loses sight of land, then sink the boat. Immediately following, the final short scene, reveals that life in the borough has returned to "normal." [tenor Anthony Dean Griffey] |
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| TOP OF PAGE | |
| MAD SCENES IN OPERA | |
| The mad scene in 19th century romantic-age Italian opera was created not merely to allow the heroine to express the losing of her mind in an aria of astonishingly difficult vocal pyrotechnics... but to present the disintegration of the character's mental state. Music reaches an emotional core in the listener beyond the ability of mere words to explain it, and in this way, is able to depict something as non-rational as "madness." It is the the music far more than the words that give operatic mad scenes a much greater impact than one in a play or film. |  |
| Most famously in Lucia di Lammermoor, Donizetti and his near-contemporary Bellini have the highest incidence of gone-mad heroines in their various operas, after Handel and the Baroque composers (who were in the habit of writing fiendishly difficult arias and mad scenes in almost every opera). As would Gounod later, Donizetti used distorted repetitions of musical phrases from an earlier part of the opera, as if the heroine is recalling - however imperfectly - something that happened before. It is almost as if the music itself, gone haywire, is like the voice, mad in itself. Bellini, however, did not use this technique as much, nor did Verdi in his sleepwalking scene for Lady Macbeth. | |
| But all these ladies act out erotic fantasies in their madness, an outward display of the build-up of sexual repression or trauma, pre-dating Freudian theory by several decades. Lucia's madness shows up in the novels of Tolstoy and Flaubert: "[Emma Bovary] permitted herself to be lulled by the melodies and felt her entire being stirred as if the bows of the violins were passing over her nerve-ends..." | |
| The operas Faust, Hamlet, Macbeth and Erwartung also have soprano mad scenes, along with the bel canto Italian group, but Peter Grimes is one of the few operas with a "mad scene" for a male singer (Boris Godunov is another). Peter is losing his grip on reality rather than tapping into memories, and it is a different kind of music that expresses this. Again, though, it is the music that haunts us more than the words; the music that conveys the anguish of his madness. | |
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| TOP OF PAGE | |
| Los Angeles Opera presents | ||
| PETER GRIMES by Benjamin Britten | ||
| October/November 2000 | ||
| Conductor | Richard Armstrong | |
| Director | John Schlesinger | |
| Designer | Luciana Arrighi | |
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| Peter Grimes | Anthony Dean Griffey | |
| Ellen Orford | Nancy Gustafson | |
| Captain Balstrode | Richard Stilwell | |
| Hobson | Michael Li-Paz | |
| Auntie | Judith Christin | |
| Nieces | Shana Blake Hill and Jordan Gumucio | |
| Bob Boles | Greg Fedderly | |
| Swallow | Louis Lebherz | |
| Mrs Sedley | Suzanna Guzmán | |
| Ned Keene | John Atkins | |
| Reverend Horace Adams | Jonathan Mack | |
| Dr Crabbe | Zale Kessler | |
| EXPLORE MORE | ||
EXPLORE |
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| Opera Basics - An Introduction The Opera Project - What's It All About? Explore More: Top 10 Ways to Fall in Love With Opera Principal Singers
& Singing WORDS
& MUSIC SHOP |
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