★★★★★
An accidental death sends a seaside community into a spiralling witch hunt. Peter Grimes, a lonely fisherman, is ostracised by the paranoid community. As their demand for blood grows louder, their mob mentality spirals into brutality. Britten and librettist Montagu Slater drilled deep into the heart of the post-World War Two British psyche when Peter Grimes was first performed in 1945, and Deborah Warner’s new production at the Royal Opera House is an equally reflective psychodrama questioning the nature of community, otherness, and violence in post-Brexit Britain. It is equally unsettling as it is thrilling.
Peter Grimes sees three stars of Britain’s opera scene unite. The critically acclaimed tenor Allan Clayton weaves visceral melancholy into his sharp vocalisation as Peter Grimes. His performance is intense and powerful but grounded by his character’s mental trauma. Despite being haunted by death and paranoia, Clayton masterfully manifests the sweetness present Grimes’s flickering sense of hope. He strives for happiness, but that dream is increasingly fleeting. Sir Bryn Terfel’s vocal performance in the role of Balstrode is like walking into a room with a roaring log fire on a cold and rainy day. His performance is a beacon of warmth both for Grimes and for the audience. Conductor Sir Mark Elder balances sharp intensity and loving tenderness; sometimes he uses a fiery tempo to ratchet up the suspense. But he nimbly contrasts this with moments of gentle delicacy, manifesting the calm before the storm.
Set designer Michael Levine breathes life into The Borough, the seaside town where Peter Grimes takes place. It is a character itself with its own pulse, animated by the large chorus who serve as its red blood cells, pumping through its veins. From the scuzzy local pub, to the seaside dock, the economic degradation and dilapidation is palpable; surfaces are dirty and rotting, grey and dilapidated. The backdrop is washed in a yellow bile colour, swallowing the set in a septic cloud, courtesy of lighting designer Peter Mumford. If the village is a human being, then it is a sickly one.
As the chorus descend into a murderous mob, the nasty reality of The Borough boils to the surface. This is where Warner’s dark directorial vision shines through; the mob calling for blood brandish Union Jacks, leather boots, and football shirts. Some are skinheads, some wield torches. Racism and extremism have festered, setting their roots deep into the psyche of economically deprived areas. Brexit and Covid have forced society to reconsider the role of community, self, and the Other, in contemporary Britain. Warner’s Peter Grimes serves a prescient warning as to how paranoia and rage can infect a group of people.
Peter Grimes will be performed at the Royal Opera House until 31 March.
Words by Alexander Cohen
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