When Britten and Pears returned from America in 1943, the composer had already received an opera commission from Serge Koussevitzky, the then conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The composer and his partner, the tenor Peter Pears, had been for some time working on a version of part of George Crabbe’s poem The Borough, a narrative poem which takes place on the coast of Britten and Crabbe’s native county of Suffolk and deals with fisherman and social outcast Peter Grimes.
The first performance took place, not as originally planned, at Koussevitzky’s Tanglewood Festival in the U.S.A., but in 1945 at the re-opening after the blitz of the Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London (Koussevitzky having generously waived the right to staging the premier) with Peter Pears in the title role; it was both a popular and critical success
The work owes more to Italy than to Germany, with obvious set pieces (arias, duets, ensembles, choruses) and, for the greater part, an absence of leitmotifs.
Here’s Zurich Opera’s 2024 production:
(for which permission isn’t given to place directly on web pages,
but just clicking on the timings below will take you to
the relevant Act on YouTube)
00:00:00 Intro
00:01:35 Prologue
00:10:54 Act I (Beginning with Four Sea Interludes: Dawn)
00:57:24 Act II
(Beginning with Four Sea Interludes:
Sunday morning)
01:28:46 Act III
(Beginning with:
Passacaglia)
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Pantygwydr!
The Art of Listening 