Search - Johnson, Lott, Allen :: Britten: Peter Grimes (2 CD/CD-ROM)

"This is an inspired performance in a superbly lifelike recording. Haitink uncovers the raw nerve-ends of the music, its astonishing and ongoing vigour shading into violence, while giving full measure to its lyrical poetry." Synopsis The coast of Benjamin Britten's native Suffolk was close to his heart, and he chose a narrative poem by the Aldeburgh-born George Crabbe as the basis for his first major opera, Peter Grimes, premiered in 1945. Grimes, a fisherman and an outsider in his community, is first seen at the inquest for his apprentice, who died during a storm at sea. The action consistently pits the suspicious local people against Grimes, and one of his few allies is the schoolmistress Ellen Orford. She hopes to marry Grimes and give him a happier life, but when she discovers a bruise on his new apprentice's neck, he strikes her. The boy then dies in an accident, driving the villagers to a frenzy and tipping Grimes over into madness. He takes his boat out to sea and sinks with it. Among the score's many powerful moments are: Peter's visionary monologue `Now the Great Bear and the Pleiades'; his surprisingly tender "In dreams I've built some kindlier home' and his bleak mad scene, accompanied only by the baying offstage chorus and the sound of a foghorn; Ellen's lovely, but foreboding `Embroidery' aria, and the atmospheric orchestral interludes, well known as a separate orchestral suite.