Word: britten
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Crude but Sympathetic. Peter Grimes is no conventional operatic hero. Britten found him in a poem written by Parson Poet George Crabbe (1754-1832) and added a few hints of Freud. Crabbe's Grimes was an uncouth and unsympathetic ruffian; to Britten and Librettist Montagu Slater he is still crude but somehow sympathetic-a character who, by his uncontrollable rages, continually puts himself at swords'-points with society, which Britten represents with the massive chorus. Sings Peter Grimes: "They listen to money, these Borough gossips. I listen to courage and fiery visions...
...apprentice, a weak young boy from the workhouse, is brought to the pub through a magnificent storm (Britten lets his furious storm music in each time the pub door is opened). The second act finds Ellen sitting beside the boy in the Sunday sunshine; she discovers that Peter Grimes has already cuffed and bruised him. This is Britten at his musical trickiest: as she sings to the boy, a church choir nearby is chanting words from the Book of Common Prayer; first the soprano's voice, then the choir, fades in & out like music in a radio play...
...Vicious Society. Composer Britten regards this opera as "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." Actually, Grimes does not defy the masses, only their fury: he would like to be one of them...
Those who have seen Benjamin Britten find it hard to believe that he could conceive so violent a play as Peter Grimes: it is almost like Baby Snooks reading lines from Medea. He is the kind of person no one remembers meeting at a party. Usually to be seen in a loose tweed coat, slacks and sweater, his hands habitually stuffed into his pockets, he has a rather tight, lean, nosy face which wrinkles easily into a vinegarish smile under a widow's peak of crinkly hair. He has a very English embarrassment about expressing emotion about anything...
...Britten lived about six months in Brooklyn, and another three years in Amityville, Long Island. For a time Britten conducted an amateur orchestra in another Long Island town, just for the fun of it. The amateurs got so they could play a Mozart symphony creditably, then began thinking about a professional concert. Britten thought that amateurs should be content to stay amateurs...