A Grand Sea Symphony? in Music and Vision 6 novembre

A Grand Sea Symphony?

GIUSEPPE PENNISI was at
concert performance in Rome
of Britten's 'Peter Grimes'

The Symphonic Season of Rome's Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia began on 26 October 2013 with a concert performance of Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes as a homage to the composer's one hundredth anniversary. I was in the audience.

Gregory Kunde sang the title role and Sally Mathews was Ellen, both making their debuts in the opera. All the other principals (Alan Opie, Susan Bickley, Elena Xanthoudakis, Simona Mihai, Michael Colvin, Matthew Best, Harry Nicoli, Roderick Williams, Darren Jeffery, Gabriella Martellacci and Marco Santarelli) were veterans of their respective parts. Felicity Palmer as Mrs Sedley needs special mention; at the age of nearly seventy she is as fresh, attractive and vocally brilliant as at her debut in 1971 with Purcell's Dido and Aeneas.

A preliminary question needs to be raised: does it make sense to present Britten's opera in a concert version? Coincidentally, on 25-26 October, at Rome's La Sapienza University, a major conference was held on the role of stage directions in operas. A conclusion was that the balance was broken, in favor of the musical part, nearly ninety years ago, due to radio broadcasting and recording of operas. In the last forty years, various forms of Regietheater have re-established it. Specifically, when composing Peter Grimes, Britten was striving to develop a new form of 'music theatre'. Thus, in a concert performance either something is missing, especially in the first part (prologue and Act 1) or the audience is offered something different.

A scene from the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia 'Peter Grimes' in Rome. Photo © 2013 Musacchio & Ianniello

Although Pappano has a very strong dramatic temperament, his Peter Grimes is a huge two-and-a-half-hour symphony, with soloists and chorus, where an oversized orchestra and chorus have a predominant role: ie the tricky Suffolk sea is not represented in stage sets but by the orchestra and chorus. According to www.operabase.com, Britten is the thirteenth most widely performed composer worldwide and the second, after Handel in the United Kingdom. Also, in terms of productions and performances, Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes is one of the twentieth century's most successful operas, after those by Giacomo Puccini and Richard Strauss. Britten's operas are not frequently staged in Italy, however. I recall only four productions of Peter Grimes in the last ten years. (See 'Engrossing and Moving', 28 May 2012.)

Antonio Pappano conducting Britten's 'Peter Grimes' in Rome. Photo © 2013 Musacchio & Ianniello

The original 1945 Sadler's Wells production was a tremendous success; during the following five years, Peter Grimes was seen and heard on the world's major stages. M&V subscribers are most likely quite familiar with the opera, an uncompromisingly East Anglian drama but with universal meaning about the petty hypocritical violence towards a fisherman who is 'different' from the rest of the crowd living in a small microcosm, the Borough. In the opera's prologue and in the six scenes, the overall atmosphere hovers close to the ear, whether in orchestral tint (the well known Sea Interludes) or in extended lyrical episodes (eg the embroidery aria) or on a large scale (eg O Tide that waits for No Man to Spare our Coasts). The opera was originally conceived for a small orchestra and a small chorus. As it moved from Sader's Wells to larger theatres, the size of orchestra and chorus were expanded. A comparison between the 1958 Decca recording, the 1978 Philips recording under Sir Colin Davis, and the 1992 EMI recording conducted by Bernard Haitink is eloquent on this point. Under Pappano, Peter Grimes is a monumental epic symphony with lyrical moments (ie the arioso Now the Great Bear and the Pleiades in which the protagonist sings repeated Es over a four-part canon in the strings).

As indicated above, Peter Grimes is a tenor and chorus opera. Gregory Kunde has made a tremendous transition from lyric coloratura tenor in the late eighties to baritenor. He did not attempt to imitate Pears or Vickers or Langridge. Instead he provided a very personal interpretation, with the ability to change register -- ie from the most sustained expression of vision of happiness in a future with Ellen to the Sprechgesang in his confrontation with the apprentice and the final arioso that flowers into lyrical phrases. His Grimes had a belcanto touch. Sally Mathews is a lyric soprano; next to Kunde she is an effective Ellen from the arioso Let her among you without fault cast the first stone to the climax of the final scene through the haunting four women ensemble of regret From the Gutter after the procession scene in the second act.

The Rome audience was enthusiastic. Most of the audience felt they had listened to a grand sea symphony rather than to the opera intended by Britten.

Copyright © 6 November 2013 Giuseppe Pennisi,
Rome, Italy