[Met Performance] CID:147730
Peter Grimes {6} Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles, California: 04/15/1948.
(Review)
Los Angeles, California
April 15, 1948
PETER GRIMES {6}
Peter Grimes............Frederick Jagel
Ellen Orford............Polyna Stoska
Captain Balstrode.......John Brownlee
Mrs. Sedley.............Martha Lipton
Auntie..................Claramae Turner
Niece...................Paula Lenchner
Niece...................Maxine Stellman
Hobson..................Philip Kinsman
Swallow.................Jerome Hines
Bob Boles...............Thomas Hayward
Rev. Horace Adams.......John Garris
Ned Keene...............Hugh Thompson
Lawyer..................Anthony Marlowe
Fisherwoman.............Thelma Altman
Fisherman...............Lawrence Davidson
Thorp...................Orrin Hill [Last performance]
John....................Peggy Smithers
Conductor...............Emil Cooper
Review of Albert Goldberg in the Los Angeles Times
"PETER GRIMES" GRIM, BRILLIANT
Three important things took place in Shrine Auditorium last night. The Metropolitan Opera Company gave the first local performance of Benjamin Britten's widely publicized "Peter Grimes." It was sung in English, and while not every word was understandable any more than it is in any other language, the audience had at all times a perfectly comprehensible idea of what was happening on the stage. And lastly, from the point of view of projection and gusto it was the best performance the "Met" has put on to date.
Struggle Depicted
"Peter Grimes" depicts the struggle of the lone individualist against the conventional attitude of society. Its stubborn protagonist is in constant conflict with public opinion and with himself. Peter Grimes, the hardy and lonely fisherman with the village schoolmistress as his only friend and defender, has bad luck with his boy apprentices. He is acquitted of culpability in the disappearance of one, but when he persists in hiring another boy for a man's work and the second one also meets an accidental death, his only alternative to foreordained conviction is suicide.
Grim for Opera
It is a grim tale and one not particular congenial to operatic treatment. Nor is the text of Montagu Slater, with its overlong exposition and high flown rhetoric, the best possible structure for a composer to build upon.
Yet, in spite of these handicaps, and chiefly because of Britten's graphic score, "Peter Grimes" emerges as a brilliant theater piece. It holds the interest by its multiplicity of characters, its picturesque background and the always vital quality of its music. Britten has written a score of amazing skill and resourcefulness. It is not rich in expressive content, but its freedom, imaginativeness and wide variety of device are of the most legitimate sort and indicate a talent of immeasurable possibilities.
Mood Music
The orchestral background, consolidating into interludes between scenes that skillfully provide atmosphere and mood, is always vivid and explicit. Like "Boris Godunoff," Peter Grimes is a "people's opera" in the sense that the chorus of townspeople plays nearly the most important role of all in commentary and action. The choral writing is complex and enormously effective, and it was sung nothing short of magnificently by the "Met" choristers.
We cannot agree with some critics that the composer made a mistake in giving the role of Peter to a tenor. It requires that quality of brilliance to give it proper dramatic expression, and it was superbly vocalized, or rather declaimed, by Frederick Jagel. But the part requires a figure of greater stature and more dramatic resource than Mr. Jagel was able to bring to it. At best Peter Grimes is none too sympathetic a character and this was the weakest point in an otherwise wholly admirable production.
Polyna Stoska's schoolmistress supplied the note of sympathy otherwise lacking among the roster of narrow and vindictive villagers. It was a finely wrought portrayal and it brought to light one of the freshest and most beautiful voices the company possesses.
There was also remarkably fine differentiation among the other host of Dickensian characters. Jerome Hines' Lawyer Swallow was a dominating figure with just the right quality of orotund voice. John Garris' sanctimonious rector was perfect, and Thomas Hayward made the roistering Bob Boles a stage drunk that for once was not ludicrous. Hugh Thompson found a distinct individuality for the laudanum-peddling Ned Keene, while the furbelowed Auntie of Claramae Turner, Paula Lenchner and Maxine Stellman as her euphemistically termed "nieces" and John Brownlee as Capt. Balstrode all contributed to a rousing good show.
Emil Cooper conducted and the orchestra played like the fine symphonic body that it is.