The Royal Opera’s new Peter Grimes (1945) immediately cuts to its tragic chase. The tenor Allan Clayton, as the eponymous fisherman, rolls and flops across the bare stage like a netted halibut in its last gasp of survival. An aerialist tumbles into the deep from a suspended boat, perhaps Grimes, perhaps the boy apprentice who died on his watch. This scene of quiet horror, replacing the usual inquest, is a brilliant opening stroke by director Deborah Warner and her creative team, led by set designer Michael Levine and lighting designer Peter Mumford. Now Grimes relives the courtroom trauma in his waterlogged nightmares.
This exceptional co-production, conducted at the ROH by Mark Elder, was first staged at Teatro Real, Madrid, last year. Covid raged then. It rages now, making this an achievement given that a cast of 14 and a large, jostling chorus are required. Some of our greatest singers take the ensemble roles and enhance them. Bryn Terfel, in superb voice, holds the stage as an unusually compassionate Captain Balstrode. John Tomlinson excels as Mr Swallow the tottery, totty-prone lawyer. James Gilchrist soothes as the smoothly supplicating Rector. Catherine Wyn-Rogers (Auntie), Rosie Aldridge (Mrs Sedley), Jacques Imbrailo (Ned Keene) and all the other townsfolk, named or not, manage to be more than caricatures.
