Peter Grimes – Leeds Grand Theatre

Composer: Benjamin Britten

Libretto: Montagu Slater after George Crabbe

Director: Phyllida Lloyd, revived by Karolina Sofulak and Tim Claydon

Conductor: Garry Walker

Karolina Sofulak and Tim Claydon preserve much of the magic of Phyllida Lloyd’s remarkable 2006 production of Peter Grimes, with Opera North’s Music Director, Garry Walker, conducting a blistering account of the score from the Opera North Orchestra which also shades into delicacy, for instance, at the very end where the swaying movements of the Chorus continue in silence after the last haunting note as the audience sits enthralled, equally silent. The six Interludes, similarly, are compellingly played, the introduction of on-stage actions emphasising their integration into the opera.

Peter Grimes is based on George Crabbe’s poem The Borough and tells of a clumsy outsider, a visionary perhaps, but a murderer to the bigoted folk of The Borough. An apprentice has died in his care and, though the verdict in the introductory inquest is accidental death, Peter is advised to avoid apprentices in future. He ignores this advice and takes another apprentice, John, whom he mistreats in a rough-and-ready way. This provokes the good folk of The Borough to march menacingly to his hut – at this point you can’t help thinking of the still current (during composition) Nazi terror – and Peter seeks to escape the townsfolk, only for John to fall to his death. Peter sails out of sight and sinks his boat.

The programme mentions the opposed traditions of playing Grimes: Peter Pears, the originator, emphasising the poet and visionary, Jon Vickers a much more violent character. John Findon belongs to the Pears tradition: there are moments of violence, but generally he is confused, outside the circle, dreaming of the Great Bear and the Pleiades. His actions during the Act 3 interludes emphasise his tenderness and despair. His voice, notably pure in the upper register, capable of great delicacy, matches his characterisation.

Philippa Boyle as Ellen Orford the schoolteacher, Grimes’ support among the townsfolk, sings the part beautifully, but registers less strongly as a character. The only other character who shows hints of understanding and regard for Grimes, Captain Balstrode, is played with impressive restraint by Simon Bailey.

The opera is described as a true “company” piece and that is where the strength of the production lies. The cast is full of small and medium-sized parts, hovering on the brink of caricature (think Albert Herring with added venom), which emerge from the wonderful choral writing.  Town life centres on the Boar pub and on the church and the sanctimonious, no-better-than-they-ought-to-be characters booze and pray their way through life until they have a victim to seek. And, at the end, with Grimes disposed of, life resumes its self-satisfied rhythm.

Hilary Summers is the dominant, if somewhat underpowered, landlady of the Bear, with Nazan Fikret and Ava Dodd her delightfully skittish “nieces”. James Creswell is the impossibly dignified, amiably lecherous lawyer Swallow, Daniel Norman chalks up another of his gallery of eccentrics as the rector and Blaise Malaba brings a rich bass voice to Hobson the carrier. Particularly striking are Stuart Jackson, bursting with alcohol-fuelled zeal as Bob Boles the Methodist, Claire Pascoe, full of gossip, laudanum and malignant malice as Mrs. Sedley, and Johannes Moore as Ned Keene, the wide boy who keeps her supplied.

Behind these the magnificent Opera North Chorus joins in full-throated pub sing songs, leaps with relish on hints of Grimes’ guilt and menaces with distant off stage cries for Peter Grimes. It is a rare opera that relies so much on the chorus and orchestra as Peter Grimes and much of the impact of this outstanding production derives from the excellence of both.

Runs until 21st February 2026, before touring