BRITTEN Peter Grimes
Live recording of Aldeburgh’s 2013 anniversary Grimes
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Benjamin Britten
Genre:
Opera
Label: Signum
Magazine Review Date: 11/2013
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 137
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: SIGCD348
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Peter Grimes |
Benjamin Britten, Composer
Alan Oke, Peter Grimes, Tenor Alexandra Hutton, Niece I, Soprano Benjamin Britten, Composer Britten-Pears Ensemble Catherine Wyn-Rogers, Mrs Sedley, Mezzo soprano Charles Rice, Ned Keene, Baritone Charmian Bedford, undefined, Soprano Chorus of the Guildhall School of Music & Drama Christopher Gillett, Rev Horace Adams, Tenor David Kempster, Balstrode, Baritone Gaynor Keeble, Auntie, Mezzo soprano Giselle Allen, Ellen Orford, Soprano Henry Waddington, undefined, Baritone Opera North Chorus Robert Murray, Bob Boles, Tenor Stephen Richardson, Hobson, Bass-baritone Steuart Bedford, Conductor |
Author: Richard Fairman
Heard live, the Maltings’ booming acoustic robbed the playing of the Britten-Pears Orchestra of a lot of crucial detail. But the microphones had been judiciously placed: on these discs the detail has miraculously resurfaced (listen to the gulls’ cries in the woodwind during the ‘Sunday Morning’ interlude) and the spacious recording quality is one of the major plus points of the set. This is an expertly paced performance, as one might expect with Steuart Bedford as conductor, building the tension incrementally over the span of the opera, sometimes at speeds faster than Britten’s own – but it does not present as strong a personality as the best of its rivals.
In part, this is because Alan Oke plays Peter Grimes as a very introverted character and declines to engage the drama as forcefully as most tenors do. He is heard to best effect when Grimes is peering deep into his soul (Oke’s final, subdued cries of ‘What harbour shelters peace?’ are painfully moving). Giselle Allen’s urgent Ellen Orford is well in the picture, though she does not always sound ingratiating, and David Kempster is a stalwart Balstrode. Among the rest of a good cast, Catherine Wyn-Rogers’s unexaggerated Mrs Sedley, Charles Rice’s suave Ned Keene and Henry Waddington’s resonant Swallow are the most vivid. The voices are quite closely miked and every word comes across clearly.
This Aldeburgh Music production is preferable to its nearest rival on LSO Live, thanks to superior recording quality and a more compelling sense of urgency. The current catalogue has some strong contenders, though, led by Colin Davis’s earlier studio recording on Philips/Decca, while the composer’s own recording surveys the field from a position of pre-eminence, still sounding as vivid as the day it was made.
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