Word: brittens
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Once in rehearsal, when the orchestra stumbled on some of Britten's rocky rhythms, Conductor Cooper slapped his score with his baton, cried out: "No, no, it is not wrong. I am like you, gentlemen. At first I thought it was wrong . . . you will change your minds." Most already had. Muttered one violinist, tapping his temple: "It's good, it's very good...
...real challenge for the Met, with its stable of posturing actors who sometimes make opera more gross than grand, would be to project the power and punch Composer Britten has packed into his Peter Grimes. One top Met official admitted: "If it flops, it'll be our fault." The Met, like most conservative opera houses, still stages its operas like any smalltime Italian company, with every singer's steps and gestures stylized, so that a substitute can step into any role on a moment's notice. The stylizing makes for convenience, but hot for conviction...
...rehearsal for the London première of Peter Grimes, Composer Britten was all over the stage, his enthusiasm overcoming his shyness, begging his singers to act their parts instead of grimacing and posturing. There were few in the Met's cast who didn't realize what they were up against. Soprano Regina Resnik is a Britten veteran: she had sung in his Rape of Lucretia in Chicago last year (TIME, June 9). But Tenor Frederick Jagel, who sings the leading role, was worried: "This is so tough dramatically that it becomes tough musically...
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...