Benjamin Britten’s 1945 opera about the end of the troubled life of the titular character, Peter Grimes, is this week’s Sunday Opera (11/15 3:00 p.m.) in a production from The Royal Opera House at Covent Garden.
At the opera’s opening, Grimes (Allan Clayton) is being questioned at an inquest regarding the death of his apprentice at sea. Even though Swallow (Clive Bayley), the town’s coroner, declares the death to be accidental, the townspeople believe Grimes is truly the cause. Only Ellen Orford (Maria Bengtsson) and retired sea captain, Captain Balstrode (Sir Bryn Terfel) seem to want to give Grimes a second chance.
Ellen’s support changes when she notices bruises on Grimes’ second apprentice and realizes that Grimes has lost control of his temper. Everything comes to a head when the townspeople rise up against Grimes, and as he and the new apprentice try to escape to the sea, the apprentice falls off a cliff and disappears into the sea below.
Grimes, who is teetering on the edge of sanity, is told by Balstrode to take his boat out to sea and scuttle it as Grimes’ death is his only escape.
Other members of the cast include Catherine Wyn-Rogers as Auntie, John Craham-Hall as Bob Boles, and James Gilchrist as Rev. Horace Adams. Jakub Hrusa conducts the Orchestra and Chorus of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
We’ll keep to the sea after the opera with another familiar work: Ralph Vaughan Williams’ glorious “choral” Symphony No. 1, “A Sea Symphony.” Based on three poems found in Walt Whitman’s collection “Leaves of Grass,” the recording to which we’ll be listening features soprano Yvonne Kenny, baritone Brian Rayner Cook, the London Symphony Chorus, and the London Symphony Orchestra. Bryden Thomson conducts.
