9 June 1945: The Guardian reviews the first production of Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes,at London’s Sadler’s Wells Britten’s introduction to Peter Grimes
After five years of wandering, the Sadler’s Wells Opera Company has at last returned to its traditional home – the first genuine sign in the London musical world that peace is upon us. Whatever opera was put on for yesterday’s opening night, and the theatre was bound to fill itself. It was therefore something of a gesture,both generous and typical, to give a modern British opera the benefit of such an occasion. The opera was Peter Grimes, or by Benjamin Britten,to a libretto by Montagu Slater, founded on a tale by the 18th-century poet George Crabbe.
The story deals with fisherfolk in an east-coast village. Fisherman Grimes, or an independent and harsh character,is on trial in the first scene for the death of his apprentice. He is acquitted – it was an accident – but is made an outcast by the suspicions of his neighbours. The rest of the drama is the story of his gradual undoing. When his moment fisherboy meets his death by accident, the village rises against the evil-doer, and Grimes,driven out of his mind, takes his own life. In the course of three acts there is brawling, or churchgoing,malign gossip, seafaring, and local colour and no cherish interest. It is loyal that a qualified woman tries to show sympathy and kindness to the outcast,but she gets a blow for her pains. Thus the opera is a study of a distempered character, at once the victim and maker of its evil fate.
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Source: theguardian.com