"coast close to Britten's homeland, awakened in him such longings for England that he knew he must return. He also knew that he must write an opera based on Crabbe's poem about the fisherman Peter Grimes. Before Britten left the US, Koussevitzky, always generous in encouraging new talent, offered him a $1,000 commission to write the opera. Britten and Pears returned to England in April 1942. During the long transatlantic sea crossing Britten completed the choral works ""A Ceremony of Carols"" and ""Hymn to St Cecilia"". The latter was his last large-scale collaboration with Auden. Britten had grown away from"
"Peter Grimes Peter Grimes is an opera by Benjamin Britten, with a libretto adapted by Montagu Slater from the narrative poem, ""Peter Grimes"", in George Crabbe's book ""The Borough"". The ""borough"" of the opera is a fictional village which shares some similarities with Crabbe's, and later Britten's, own home of Aldeburgh, a town on England's east coast. It was first performed at Sadler's Wells in London on 7 June 1945, conducted by Reginald Goodall, and was the first of Britten's operas to be a critical and popular success. It is still widely performed, both in the UK and internationally, and"
"Benjamin Britten Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976) was an English composer, conductor and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British classical music, with a range of works including opera, other vocal music, orchestral and chamber pieces. His best-known works include the opera ""Peter Grimes"" (1945), the ""War Requiem"" (1962) and the orchestral showpiece ""The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra"" (1945). Born in Suffolk, the son of a dentist, Britten showed talent from an early age. He studied at the Royal College of Music in London and privately with the composer"
"of the ""War Requiem"", ""Peter Grimes"" and other works in four continents. In the US the centennial events were described as ""coast to coast,"" with a Britten festival at Carnegie Hall, and performances at the New York Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera and Los Angeles Opera. Notes References Sources Benjamin Britten Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976) was an English composer, conductor and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British classical music, with a range of works including opera, other vocal music, orchestral and chamber pieces. His best-known works include the opera ""Peter"
"to take his boat out to sea and sink it. Grimes leaves. The next morning, the Borough begins its day anew, as if nothing has happened. There is a report from the coastguard of a ship sinking off the coast. This is dismissed by Auntie as ""one of these rumours."" Notes Cited sources Other sources Peter Grimes Peter Grimes is an opera by Benjamin Britten, with a libretto adapted by Montagu Slater from the narrative poem, ""Peter Grimes"", in George Crabbe's book ""The Borough"". The ""borough"" of the opera is a fictional village which shares some similarities with Crabbe's, and"
"must write an opera, and where I belonged. Britten returned to England in April 1942. Soon after his return, he asked Montagu Slater to be his librettist for ""Peter Grimes"". Britten and Pears both had a strong hand in drafting the story, and in this process the character of Grimes became far more complex. Rather than being the clear-cut villain he is in Crabbe's version, he became a victim of both cruel fate and society, while retaining darker aspects in his character. It is left to the audience to decide which version is more true, and to see how clear-cut"
"New York under John Barbirolli. A performance in Boston under Serge Koussevitzky led to the commission of the opera ""Peter Grimes"" from the Koussevitzky Music Foundations. The Sinfonia is Britten's largest purely orchestral work for the concert hall. It was his first major orchestral work that did not include a soloist and, according to musicologist Peter Evans, marks the peak of his early writing in this idiom. Unlike many of Britten's works from this time, it has remained popular and continues to be programmed on orchestral concerts. In the early autumn of 1939, Britten was commissioned through the British Consul"
"Opera Program at the San Francisco Opera (SFO). He made his professional debut with the program's touring arm: the Western Opera Theatre. In 1973 he made his MainStage debut with the company as the Fisherman in Benjamin Britten's ""Peter Grimes"". Del Carlo considered the SFO his home base and he continued to perform regularly with the company for the next four decades in more than 40 productions. In 1976 he created the role of the Financier in the world premiere of Andrew Imbrie’s ""Angle of Repose"" at the SFO. Some of the other roles he performed with the SFO were"
"Jonathan Summers Jonathan Summers (born 2 October 1946) is an Australian operatic baritone. He sang the role of Captain Balstrode in the 1980 recording of Benjamin Britten's ""Peter Grimes"" which won a Grammy award for Best Opera recording. Summers was born in Melbourne and in that city studied art at Prahran Technical College (1964-9) and singing with Bettine McCaughan (1964–74). From 1970-1974, he worked as a technical operator and recording engineer with the Radio Division of the Australian Broadcasting Commission. In 1973 he won the ABC Instrumental and Vocal Competition. In 1974, he moved to London, where he studied with"
"1944 working on the opera ""Peter Grimes"". Pears joined Sadler's Wells Opera Company, whose artistic director, the singer Joan Cross, announced her intention to re-open the company's home base in London with Britten's opera, casting herself and Pears in the leading roles. There were complaints from company members about supposed favouritism and the ""cacophony"" of Britten's score, as well as some ill-suppressed homophobic remarks. ""Peter Grimes"" opened in June 1945 and was hailed by public and critics; its box-office takings matched or exceeded those for ""La bohème"" and ""Madame Butterfly"", which were staged during the same season. The opera administrator"
"Brett Polegato Brett Polegato (born 1968 in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada) is an operatic baritone. In 1999 he made his Lyric Opera of Chicago debut as Peter Niles in Levy's ""Mourning Becomes Electra"" followed by his La Scala debut in 2000 as Ned Keene in Britten's ""Peter Grimes"". He is particularly known for his interpretation of the title role in Debussy's ""Pelléas et Mélisande"" which he has performed with many companies including the Bavarian State Opera, Opéra National de Paris, Oper Leipzig, and Opéra National du Rhin among others. Other European appearances include Ubalde in Gluck's ""Armide"" at Opéra de"
"Slater was selected by Benjamin Britten as librettist for his opera ""Peter Grimes"", which was based on ""Letter XXII: Peter Grimes"" in George Crabbe's poem ""The Borough"". For the libretto, Slater eschewed the traditional five-stress line form of English rhyming or blank verse in favour of a more modern and conversational four stress line with rhyming couplets. He argued that contemporary listeners were accustomed to assonance and consonantal rhyme but it could also be argued that this form of 'rough' rhyme was common in early English drama and that Slater was restoring it to the stage, rather than inventing something"
"he decided that orchestral playing would not be his career. He played in the orchestra at Sadler's Wells in the opening performances of Benjamin Britten's ""Peter Grimes"" in 1945, and at Covent Garden in ballet performances (""The Sleeping Beauty"") in 1946, while still at the Royal College of Music. He also played for the orchestra of the San Carlo Opera Company. After some time on the staff at the University of Aberdeen, where he conducted his first opera, Mozart's ""The Marriage of Figaro"", Downes' pursuit of conducting was aided by a two-year Carnegie scholarship which allowed him to study with"
"Eric Crozier Eric Crozier OBE (14 November 1914 - 7 September 1994) was a British theatrical director and opera librettist, long associated with Benjamin Britten. Crozier was born in London, and after an apprenticeship at the Old Vic theatre, he joined the Sadlers Wells Opera Company in London during the Second World War, and directed Britten's first opera, ""Peter Grimes"", at Sadler's Wells in 1945. He founded the English Opera Group in 1947, and co-founded (with Britten) the Aldeburgh Festival in 1948. He directed his second wife, Nancy Evans, in the role of Lucretia in the 1946 premiere of Britten's"
"and Jonathan Summers. In 1967, the Metropolitan Opera mounted a ""landmark"" production directed by Tyrone Guthrie and starring Jon Vickers in the role of Grimes. In the summer of 2013, the Aldeburgh Festival staged a performance of ""Peter Grimes"" in its natural setting on the beach at Aldeburgh with tenor Alan Oke in the title role. A Suffolk coastal village, mid-19th century (The date is not specified, but the foghorn in Act III places it later than the date of Crabbe's poem) Peter Grimes is questioned at an inquest over the death at sea of his apprentice. The townsfolk, all"
"relations with his apprentice to be bordering on paederastic, Pears persuaded Slater to cut the questionable stanzas from the final version. The opera was commissioned by the Koussevitzky Music Foundations and is ""dedicated to the memory of Natalie Koussevitzky"", wife of the Russian-born American conductor Serge Koussevitzky. When Joan Cross, who was then manager of the Sadler's Wells company, announced her intention to re-open Sadler's Wells Theatre with ""Peter Grimes"" with herself and Peter Pears in the leading roles, there were many complaints from company members about supposed favouritism and the """" of Britten's score. Yet when ""Peter Grimes"" opened"
"James Pease James Pease (Indianapolis, 9 January 1916 – New York, 26 April 1967) was an American bass-baritone, notable for his Wagnerian roles. He was also a distinguished Balstrode in Benjamin Britten’s ""Peter Grimes"", a role which he was the first to perform in the US in 1946, and later recorded under the composer’s direction in 1958. A law graduate of Indiana University in 1939, Pease won a scholarship at the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia and studied there rather than begin practice as a lawyer. He made his debut with the Philadelphia Opera Company as Mephistopheles in ""Faust"","
"Birmingham season, Davies took over the conducting of Britten's ""Spring Symphony"" from the composer, who was unwell. Britten was so impressed that he invited him to conduct ""The Rape of Lucretia"" and ""The Turn of the Screw"" at the 1960 and 1961 Aldeburgh Festivals. Davies resigned from the deputy musical directorship in Birmingham in 1960, and made a very successful Covent Garden debut in November, conducting ""Peter Grimes"". His handling of the big choral ensembles received particular praise. Early in 1961 he conducted more performances of ""Peter Grimes"" before going to Vancouver in July for the North American premiere of"
"Peter Graeme Graeme Peter Crump (1921 – 1 March 2012), known professionally as Peter Graeme and as 'Timmy' Crump to friends and family, was an English oboist and academic teacher. He was best known as the principal oboist of the Melos Ensemble. Peter Graeme studied the oboe with Léon Goossens. Graeme was the oboist of the Melos Ensemble, founded in 1950, and participated with the group in the premiere of the ""War Requiem"" by Benjamin Britten, conducted by the composer at the Coventry Cathedral in 1962. In 1954 he played English horn in a recording of Warlock's song cycle ""The"
"operas. His popularity was confirmed by the several Sarie Awards he received for his records. Sarie Awards are made by the South African Recording Industry. His greatest operatic success was in the leading role in ""Peter Grimes"", an opera by Benjamin Britten . He also sang arias from ""Don Giovanni"" by Mozart, ""Cavalleria Rusticana"" by Mascagni, ""La Boheme"" by Puccini and from the Afrikaans opera ""In die Droogte"" by John Joubert. His repertoire also included extracts from the oratorios of Handel and Mendelssohn, Britten's ""War Requiem"", and the radiophonic opera ""Asterion"" by the Dutch composer Henk Badings based on the"
"or ambiguous the various characters are. Pears was certainly the intended Peter Grimes, and it is likely that Britten wrote the role of Ellen Orford for Joan Cross. The work has been called ""a powerful allegory of homosexual oppression"", and one of ""the true operatic masterpieces of the 20th century"", but the composer's own contemporary (1948) summation of the work was simpler: a subject very close to my heart — the struggle of the individual against the masses. The more vicious the society, the more vicious the individual. Though as the writing of the libretto progressed, certain versions showed Grimes'"
"James Mason. From 1940, while the theatre was closed during the Second World War, the ballet company toured throughout the country, and on its return changed its name to the Sadler's Wells Ballet. Similarly, the opera company toured to return as Sadler's Wells Opera Company, and it reopened the theatre with the premiere of Benjamin Britten's ""Peter Grimes"". In 1946, with the re-opening of the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, the ballet company was invited to become the resident company there. De Valois decided that a second company was needed to continue ballet performances at Sadler's Wells, and so"
"age 14, his mother committed suicide by gassing herself in an oven, and he was brought up in Wallington, at that time in Surrey. He won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music, where he studied composition under Herbert Howells. He then became Benjamin Britten's only private pupil at Aldeburgh between 1945 and 1951. (He claims that the bar lines on the manuscript of ""Peter Grimes"" were his work.) He and Britten came into conflict over their ideas about choral music, but they later worked together in Edinburgh on Britten's ""Voices for Today"", Op. 75, and the ""War Requiem""."
"Lord Harewood called it ""the first genuinely successful British opera, Gilbert and Sullivan apart, since Purcell."" Dismayed by the in-fighting among the company, Cross, Britten and Pears severed their ties with Sadler's Wells in December 1945, going on to found what was to become the English Opera Group. A month after the opening of ""Peter Grimes"", Britten and Yehudi Menuhin went to Germany to give recitals to concentration camp survivors. What they saw, at Belsen most of all, so shocked Britten that he refused to talk about it until towards the end of his life, when he told Pears that"
"Moscow. After her singing voice was discovered by Feodor Chaliapin, a Russian bass, she studied with Salvatore Salvati in Switzerland and Rosina Storchio in Milan, Italy. She toured in Poland, Austria, Switzerland and Italy. In 1946 she sang the role of Ellen Orford in the first broadcast of Benjamin Britten's opera ""Peter Grimes"" on Italian radio. After traveling to Italy during World War II, she was not allowed to return to Latvia. Her husband and the rest of her family, excepting her son, were killed or deported during the Soviet occupation of Latvia. Her son was sent to Siberia. Predit"
"""Peter Grimes"", casting herself and Pears in the leading roles. There were complaints from company members about supposed favouritism and the ""cacophony"" of Britten's score, as well as some ill-suppressed homophobic remarks. ""Peter Grimes"" opened in June 1945 and was hailed by public and critics. Most of the extensive press coverage was to do with the work, but there was also high praise for the performances of Pears and Cross. Dismayed by the in-fighting among the company, Cross, Britten and Pears severed their ties with Sadler's Wells in December 1945, going on to found what was to become the English"
"Wells where on 7 June 1945 he made his operatic debut as Balstrode in the world premiere of Benjamin Britten's ""Peter Grimes"". He joined the Welsh National Opera in 1951 and remained with the company for the rest of his career. Amongst his notable performances there were Montfort in ""I vespri siciliani"" and the title role in ""Nabucco"". After his retirement from the stage in the early 1960s he became the Director of the Jamaica School of Music. He returned to Wales in 1970 and taught singing at Aberystwyth University College. Jones died in Newport, Wales at the age of"
"four movements (""Preludio"", ""Scherzo"", ""Romanza"" and ""Passacaglia"") and includes two flutes (second doubling piccolo), oboe, English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani and strings. The Oregon Symphony's February 2012 performances were its first performances of Symphony No. 5. The recording continues with Britten's ""Four Sea Interludes"" and ""Passacaglia"". The four interludes (""Dawn"", ""Sunday morning"", ""Moonlight"" and ""Storm"") have been published separately as Opus 33a; ""Passacaglia"" has also been published separately as Opus 33b. ""Peter Grimes"" premiered on June 7, 1945, at the Sadler's Wells Theatre in London, conducted by Reginald Goodall. On June 13,"
"at odds with a hostile society. The extent to which this reflected Britten's perception of himself, pacifist and homosexual, in the England of the 1930s, 40s and 50s is debated. Another recurrent theme is the corruption of innocence, most sharply seen in ""The Turn of the Screw"". Over the 28 years between ""Peter Grimes"" and ""Death in Venice"" Britten's musical style changed, as he introduced elements of atonalism – though remaining essentially a tonal composer – and of eastern music, particularly gamelan sounds but also eastern harmonies. In ""A Midsummer Night's Dream"" the orchestral scoring varies to fit the nature"
"not his own in which Britten was a somewhat dazzled accomplice"". The American public liked it, but the critics did not, and it fell into neglect until interest revived near the end of the composer's life. Britten's subsequent operas range from large-scale works written for full-strength opera companies, to chamber operas for performance by small touring opera ensembles or in churches and schools. In the large-scale category are ""Peter Grimes"" (1945), ""Billy Budd"" (1951), ""Gloriana"" (1953), ""A Midsummer Night's Dream"" (1960) and ""Death in Venice"" (1973). Of the remaining operas, ""The Rape of Lucretia"" (1946), ""Albert Herring"" (1947), ""The Little"
"Bennett's opera ""A Penny for a Song"". After this he went freelance, conducting the BBC orchestras, the Orchestre National de France and in Montreal, Edmonton and Vancouver. From 1979 to 1992 he was professor at the School of Music at Indiana University. He retired in 1992 and returned to Britain. During his career he became particularly associated with the performances of Joan Sutherland, including conducting her at Covent Garden in ""Alcina"", ""La sonnambula"" and, in her most celebrated role, ""Lucia di Lammermoor"". He also conducted Peter Pears in ""Peter Grimes"", Jon Vickers in ""Aida"" and Régine Crespin in ""Tosca"". Bryan"
"the première of Britten's ""Peter Grimes"", in which work Cross created the leading female role of Ellen Orford. The other Britten roles that she created were: In the series of Decca recordings of his operas Britten conducted, Cross appeared only in the 1955 mono recording of ""The Turn of the Screw"", the other operas being recorded after her retirement from singing—namely ""Peter Grimes"" in 1958, ""Albert Herring"" in 1964 and ""The Rape of Lucretia"" in 1970. (""Gloriana"" was not commercially recorded until 1992, when Cross was aged 92.) However, archival recordings of her performances as Ellen Orford and the Female"
"company's name and tradition. It was agreed that the two companies should remain separate. Divisions within the company threatened its continued existence. Cross announced her intention to re-open Sadler's Wells theatre with ""Peter Grimes"" by Benjamin Britten, with herself and Pears in the leading roles. Many complaints resulted about supposed favouritism and the ""cacophony"" of Britten's score. ""Peter Grimes"" opened in June 1945, to both public and critical acclaim; its box-office takings matched or exceeded those for ""La bohème"" and ""Madame Butterfly"", which the company was concurrently staging. However, the rift within the company was irreparable. Cross, Britten and Pears"