Peter Grimes
- Robert Beale
- Feb 14
- 4 min read
Montagu Slater and Benjamin Britten, after George Crabbe
Opera North
Grand Theatre, Leeds
13-21 February, 2026: 3 hrs 20 mins
(also on February 19, 21 at Leeds Grand, March 13 at Lowry Salford and March 20 at the Theatre Royal, Newcastle)
With a bit of speechifying at the start and two substantial intervals, Opera North’s production of Peter Grimes is a long evening. But it’s worth it.
Phyllida Lloyd’s production, first seen 20 years ago, was revived in 2013 for the company's “Festival of Britten”, and is back now with a cast of (mainly) young British singers, several in company debuts, which bodes extremely well for them and for us. John Findon, in the title role, leads them in every respect.
The revival is co-directed by Karolina Sofulak and Tim Claydon, who is also the movement director, and Opera North’s music director, Garry Walker, conducts the score in vivid primary colours, at times devastatingly powerful, always atmospheric, often heart-rending.
When I first saw it, the production (from a director as noted for her opera stagings as she was for her West End production of Mamma Mia!) seemed strikingly minimalistic. In Anthony Ward’s designs, there is hardly any scenery in the conventional sense: what there is becomes symbolic as well as evocative.
The cast become scene constructors, often during the famous Sea Interludes, originally conceived as entr’actes to frame the narrative in its unfolding tragedy. When they’re not doing that, Lloyd’s production emphasises aspects of the story in mime, at one point – the construction of Grimes’s hut – affording a flashback to a time when he was an accepted member of his community. It also begins with the ending: we see Grimes’s drowned corpse discovered on the shore, at first by children, as a silent overture to the whole.
The time setting is contemporaneous with (maybe a little bit later than) the creation of the opera in 1945. Dr Crabbe - a figure from the crowd who represents the detached observer of it all - wears a stylish trilby hat: the sluttish nieces of the publican, Auntie, wear daringly short skirts.
One reason why the opera creates its impact in almost any realisation is that librettist Montagu Slater spelled everything out so clearly from the start. It’s about a misfit, almost a child in a man’s body for one thing, suspected of physically abusing one apprentice boy he took to sea and who never came back, and instantly labelled a murderer when he takes on a second lad who also disappears.
From the beginning we know that Swallow, the lawyer in the coroner’s court and also the mayor, is not to be trusted, as he tells Grimes to recall what happened “in your own words” – except that the fisherman never gets a chance to put a word in edgeways, as Swallow (gravely sung by James Cresswell) dictates his answers.
John Findon’s Grimes is superb – bright and ringing at full pelt, spot-on with intonation, and wonderfully delicate at other times. His "Now the Great Bear…” is outstanding, the tone tender and pure (and beautifully accompanied by the Orchestra of Opera North), and his scene with the new apprentice revealed a complex personality of cruelty and longing for a warmth he never experienced himself.
Schoolteacher Ellen Orford, whom Grimes hopes one day to make his bride (though more as a mother figure to care for him than for any other reason), is sung by Philippa Boyle, whose soprano tone gives her at times a tougher edge than apparent in some interpretations. She’s generous to a fault, but strong enough to know her own mind – and her "Embroidery in childhood…", with its tender, harp-led accompaniment, is simply a beautiful song.
Simon Bailey (Captain Balstrode) makes his impact vocally and in stage presence as the old sea dog who tries his best to help the young fisherman; Hilary Summers as Auntie is a strong woman with a strong voice; Ned Keene, the “apothecary” in the libretto, is presented as a minor drug-pusher and Johannes Moore makes him real; Claire Pascoe, as the elderly widow and gossip Mrs Sedley, makes her quite sprightly and comical.
Bob Boles, the open-air Methodist preacher ever ready with a condemnation, is hardly a sympathetic character (and one that doesn’t easily translate into the second half of the 20th century, when there were far fewer of them about) but gets a wild-eyed impersonation from Stuart Jackson. He’s not a nutter, though – he’s the one who condemns the whole apprentice system as against the teaching of the Bible.
Daniel Norman, as the rector, Mr Adams, is a comically ineffectual parson with faults of his own, such as an eye for young women and a liking for drink – another nice piece of character acting from Norman, who also plays Don Basilio in the tour's accompanying production of The Marriage of Figaro.
The Opera North Chorus is, as ever, a joy to hear and its members eager participants in every task they’re given. Their sea shanty "Old Joe" is so rhythmically enthusiastic they could have been hauling a boat for real.
More info and tickets here
