Peter Grimes is a triumph with stand-in star
Peter Grimes
(out of 4) By Benjamin Britten. Directed by Neil Armfeld. Conducted by Johannes Debus. Until Oct. 26 at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, 145 Queen St. W. 416-363-8231.
What could have been a tragedy wound up as a triumph.
The Canadian Opera Company’s production of Peter Grimes, which opened on Saturday night, was supposed to feature another stellar performance by Canadian tenor Ben Heppner, who had dazzled everyone last season with his virtuoso work in Tristan und Isolde. But early in the week, Heppner’s voice became irritated and he told the COC he would not be able to make the Wednesday night dress rehearsal.
Moving with rare foresight, the company reached out to the American tenor Anthony Dean Griffey, who had drawn acclaim for his performance as Grimes at the Metropolitan Opera and elsewhere around the world.
With only 90 minutes preparation, he sailed seamlessly through the rehearsal and was ready when Heppner felt he was still unable to perform at Saturday’s opening.
That kind of natural drama is bound to affect a company’s adrenalin and it’s safe to say that the rendition of Peter Grimes we witnessed at the opening was made up of equal parts talent and terror.
Benjamin Britten’s 1945 opera is one of the most magnificent in the 20th-century canon, combining melodic brilliance with powerful orchestration and letting both serve a story that has the true stuff of tragedy in it.
Set on England’s wild east coast, it tells of fisherman Peter Grimes, loner and outcast, whose young apprentice has died in his service. The inhabitants of “the Borough,” made up of the tight minds that flourish in small towns, believe Grimes is guilty even though an inquest clears him.
But their doubts and gossip work on Grimes’ already weakened mind and drive him to madness. When it looks like his new apprentice may be suffering from abuse, a vigilante committee rises up against Grimes with tragic results.
It’s a multi-levelled work that portrays societal bullying as the killer it is, while trying to help us see into the heart and mind of one tortured man whose only real crime is being different.
While it’s tempting to give the work a completely visualized staging that would match its evocative score, director Neil Armfeld (his work remounted splendidly here by Denni Sayers) has boldly staged it in a kind of giant church hall, designed by Ralph Myers, where tables, benches and chairs provide all the scenery needed.
Tess Schofield’s picture-perfect costuming (setting the action in the year of the opera’s composition) and Damien Cooper’s truly dramatic lighting (re-created here by Wendy Greenwood) provide all the detail we need. The music is truly the star here and conductor Johannes Debus displays an almost preternatural understanding of how to make Britten’s dynamics come to life. Long passages sung virtually a cappella are interspersed with some of the most stirring orchestral music ever written. Debus brings his keen intellect to the task and we always hear exactly what we need to. And, once again, the COC chorus, under the guidance of Sandra Horst, prove they are not only superlative musicians, but great actors as well. On several occasions, they advance on the audience en masse, eyes blazing with hate for Grimes and every last person on the stage is acting and singing with the same white hot in- tensity. The opera also offers a wide array of supporting roles and they are all handled with individuality and distinction. The drug-addled widow of Judith Christin stands in wonderful contrast to the hearty publican of Jill Grove and the drollery of her two flirtatious “nieces,” Claire de Sévigné and Danielle MacMillan. Alan Held has enormous power as the old salt Balstrode, while Roger Honeywell’s raging alcoholic Boles, Peter Barrett’s slimy apothecary Ned and Tom Corbeil’s hypocritical Swallow are all richly vivid characterizations. But when we start to consider Ileana Montalbetti’s saintly Ellen Orford, we are in the realm of greatness. The heartbreaking emotional openness of her voice and the wealth of feeling she gives every moment mark
Peter Grimes. her as the beating heart of this production.
And then we have Anthony Dean Griffey, whose Grimes isn’t just a stunning piece of singing, with crystal-clear pianissimos and raftershaking fortissimos, but is a complex piece of acting as well, never asking for our pity, but painfully earning it by the final curtain.
When that curtain fell Saturday night, it rose again to an instant standing ovation, with the audience showing their gratitude for the mountain that had just been scaled so successfully against all odds.
But when the bows were finished and the curtain came down for the last time, the incredible shout of joy in unison that was heard from behind it was the sound of a company of artists who had faced disaster and turned it into delight.