Britten: Peter Grimes

Peter Pears (Peter Grimes)
Heather Harper (Ellen Orford)
Bryan Drake (Balstrode)
Elizabeth Bainbridge (Auntie)
Ann Robson (Mrs Sedley)
Owen Brannigan (Swallow)
Jill Gomez, Anne Pashley (Nieces)
Gregory Dempsey (Bob Boles)
Robert Tear (Rev Horace Adams)
David Bowman (Ned Keene)

Ambrosian Opera Chorus
London Symphony Orchestra
Benjamin Britten (conductor)

Decca 074 3261 (DVD)

Ever since it sensationally burst on to the scene in 1945, establishing Britten's reputation worldwide, Peter Grimes, set in an 1830s Suffolk fishing community, has been 'the' English-language opera. Goodness knows what image it gives in opera houses around the world of the English: insular, unromantic, repressed, beset by unreliable weather, prone to drunken brawls...

...and suspicious of outsiders, the theme that runs through all Britten's operas. When his young apprentice dies at sea in suspicious circumstances, villagers rise against the outsider-fisherman of the title. Compassionate widow Ellen Orford helps him get another apprentice; but he dies accidentally too, and the villagers hound Grimes to madness and suicide. No wonder that the opera's as short on luscious romantic melodies as the Suffolk coast is on edelweiss. Little RodgersnHammerstein-style technicolour here: Britain's eastern shore, gnawed at by North Sea storms, its bleak villages shrouded in mist, sits out most of the year in damp tones of grey. Britten, born in Lowestoft, knew these colours and moods well, and much of the music stunningly evokes the clammy terror and fogbound claustrophobia of dirt-poor village life-on-the-edge. Indeed, four orchestral interludes have become a concert item in their own right.

This fabulously enjoyable historic document is an archive recording of a BBC broadcast of the opera on 2 November 1969. Britten himself conducts, and many of the Britten-circle are involved: Heather Harper as Ellen Orford, Elizabeth Bainbridge as Auntie, and of course Peter Pears - Britten's lifetime lover - in the title role, which was written for him. (And the staging is by Joan Cross, the original Ellen.)

Britten's conducting is sharp, often brisk (in the court scene, for instance) and repressive rather than expansive (in the interludes, for instance, which are accompanied on screen by odd, budget-psychedelia swirly patterns on screen). In other words serving the drama, and grippingly so, rather than the concert-hall. A live recording with a few slips and fudges, it's not as precise as Britten's 1958 recording, but has a real fizz and fury. Take, for example, the climax to Act II, where the village stampedes off to lynch Grimes: scary stuff.

Indeed, much of the staging works extremely well. It's a very naturalistic setting, with rickety wooden buildings and huts. The villager scenes work particularly well visually the court scene, the drum march, the pub episodes though the chorus can sound a bit quiet. The TV direction is 1960s Beeb costume-drama style, but effective and natural-feeling. Even by the standards of the time, the recording standards aren't great: it's dry mono sound, and the videotape is rather smeary and brown - though that all adds to the dark and isolated atmosphere.

There are many superb things about this. Harper's Ellen is beautifully and lyrically sung, but a surprisingly tough cookie, more ship's biscuit than custard cream. Balstrode is bluff and down-to-earth rather than jovial, while there are entertainingly characterised supporting characters in the shape of Mrs Sedley, Boles, Keene, and the gormless yokel Hobson. Brannigan's marvellous Swallow, a pompous walking toby-jug of a man, and Bainbridge's strident brothel-madame, Auntie, are a delight.

And then there's Pears... hmm. If, like many people, you're used to a Jon Vickers-style Grimes (a roaring, wounded bear, who you can easily imagine hurling a boat through a Force 9 and then knocking someone around back home in a fit of anger) then Pears's less strident performance will come as a surprise. You can tell the role was written for him: he has some odd timbres in various parts of his range. Britten wrote with these in mind and knew how to exploit its colours - the monologue 'Now the Great Bear and Pleiades', for instance, hanging off Pears's treacly high E, or the desperately dreaming 'What harbour...?' sequence, up in his floaty high register. But many may feel that there's too much of the stiff Englishman about his acting to convince. Look, for example, at the way he speaks the 'We found us Davy Jones' bit in the 'Old Joe' rondo; now there's someone who had elocution lessons. A "brutal, callous and coarse" fisherman? He moves and enunciates more like a peeved Latin master about to give the whole of 4C detention.

He's not alone in the bit-too-polite department. When Balstrode tells Grimes to sail out and commit suicide, he could have been telling him to nip down the shops and fetch twenty number six tipped. There's lots of dirty looks and genuine tension in the village, but not enough sheer nastiness and violence for modern tastes. Oh well; perhaps we're wrong and they were right.

But there's so much to enjoy here. It's not just a fascinating historical document (how Britten did it then, how telly did it then) but it's also a well-staged and often emotionally scorching production of this great, great opera. Flawed and of its time; but well worth a look.

Ian Mortimer