Everyone Hates Peter Grimes
Opera Review: “Peter Grimes” @ The Met
(Photos by Ken Howard)
Like its central character, Benjamin Britten’s “Peter Grimes” occupies a precarious place in the social consciousness. With its attractive score and mysteriously dark story, the opera evokes the same kind of scrutiny the ambiguously sinister yet psychologically compelling Grimes attracts from the local townspeople; folks don’t know whether to sympathize with it, or to send it off to some penal colony never to be heard from again. But Grimes the opera is faring better these days than its conflicted hero in that it is often considered to be one of the greatest operas of the last century. Yet because of its subject–an angry fisherman whose abusive violence toward young boy apprentices attracts the town’s judgement when one of the boys turns up inexplicably dead–the opera cannot escape a lingering skepticism about whether or not it should be taken as a work of great artistic and moral value.
The opera is often championed as an allegory for the outcast soul, particularly that of the gay male in contemporary society (a position unfortunately promoted by its creators, Britten and his long-time partner and the first tenor to sing Grimes, Peter Pears), but such metaphor making is seriously compromised by the textual realities of the work, that, even interpreted liberally, still do not excuse Grimes’s violence: This opera is not about adult consensual romantic love; it’s about an adult person who is violent toward children. So casting is key, given that the audience is expected to identify with a hero who is essentially the town child abuser. If you get the right Grimes to enter the role, make him, if not likeable, then at least attractive, then you might have a compelling piece of theater on your hands. I hate to report that The Metropolitan Opera’s new production, a dark, cold, rigid staging with a casting flaw at its center, isn’t going to do much to benefit the future of the opera’s legacy.
...Jon Vickers as Peter Grimes by Britten
1981
Peter Grimes - 3 tickets found
![]() | PETER GRIMES Washington Opera KENNEDY CTR Apr 04 @ 7 PM Tickets > Event Tickets FRONT ORCH Row G Seats 14 & 16. SCARCE SAT EVENING TKTS $124.00 End time: 29-Jan-09 07:13:38 PST |
![]() | PETER GRIMES Washington Opera KENNEDY CTR Apr 04 @ 7 PM Tickets > Event Tickets FRONT ORCH Row H Seats 11 & 13. SCARCE SAT EVENING TKTS $124.00 End time: 29-Jan-09 07:07:32 PST |
![]() | PETER GRIMES Washington Opera KENNEDY CTR Apr 04 @ 7 PM Tickets > Event Tickets FRONT ORCH Row H Seats 15 & 17. SCARCE SAT EVENING TKTS $124.00 End time: 29-Jan-09 07:04:32 PST |
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Peter Grimes News

Harvey hat-trick helps Badgers to three points Retford Today, UK - Paul Grimes stepped up to take the spot-kick, and made no mistake as he scored past Gary Hateley. Chris Bettney did well to beat the offside trap, |
Retford suffer New Year's Day defeat Retford Today, UK - Matt Fisher won the ball and passed it out to Chris Bettney, his cross to Paul Grimes was close, but Grimes was unable to stretch and make contact. |
Times Online | Our critics choose the best theatre, dance and music of the year ahead Times Online, UK - May sees a new David Alden staging of Britten’s Peter Grimes, with starry leads (Stuart Skelton, Amanda Roocroft, Gerald Finley), and the UK premiere of |
Peter Hermann | Baltimore Crime Beat Baltimore Sun, United States - It took more than an hour for Brandon Grimes' defense attorney to argue why the young man deserved a new trial for killing a Baltimore police officer |
Music and drama will fill concert halls and theaters DetNews.com, MI - Slatkin will come back twice in April, and the first of these, April 2-4, is a beauty: Britten's "Four Sea Interludes" from the opera "Peter Grimes," |
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