Britten's 'Peter Grimes'

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1945 Peter Grimes, a new opera by English composer Benjamin Britten, debuted at Sadler’s Wells Theater in London. The libretto was based on George Crabbe’s long poem, The Borough, published in 1810, which described life along England’s North Sea coast.

In the early 1940’s, Britten was living in America, and had read Crabbe’s poem in California. The commission for the opera was also American, coming from Serge Koussevitzky, conductor of the Boston Symphony and one of the leading music patrons of the day.

But his opera is intensely English — evoking, as it does, the images and sounds of the North Sea off the east coast of Suffolk. He was born within sight of this seascape, and lived, for the better part of his later life, a little farther down the coast at Aldeburgh — the borough on which Crabbe had based his poem.

From the start, Peter Grimes was an immediate success. Within a week of its June 7 premiere, Britten conducted the London Philharmonic in an orchestral suite of Sea Interludes from his new opera, and these, too, have since firmly established themselves in the concert repertory.

Music Played in Today's Program

Benjamin Britten (1913-1976): Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes; London Symphony; André Previn, conductor; EMI 72658

On This Day

Births

• 1897 - Hungarian born American conductor and occasional composer/arranger George Szell, in Budapest. He was led the Cleveland Orchestra from 1946 until the time of his death in 1970.

Deaths

• 1863 - Austrian composer Franz Xaver Gruber, 75, in Hallen (near Salzburg). He composed the famous Christmas Carol, “Silent Night” (Stille Nacht), in 1818, while serving as a church organist and schoolmaster in Oberndorf.

Premieres

• 1896 - Hugo Wolf: opera Der Corregidor (The Governor) (first version) in Mannheim at the Nationaltheater

• 1920 - Gershwin: musical revue, George White’s Scandals of 1920, at the Globe Theater in New York City

• 1922 - American premiere of Vaughan Williams: Pastoral Symphony (No. 3), at the Litchfield County Choral Festival in Norfolk, Connecticut, with the composer conducting. The world premiere had taken place in London on Jan. 26, 1922.

• 1927 - Prokofiev: ballet, Pas d’Acier, in Paris, by the Ballet Russe

• 1933 - Weill: The Seven Deadly Sins of the Bourgeoisie, in Paris; text by Bertolt Brecht

• 1945 - Britten: opera Peter Grimes, in London at Sadler’s Wells Theater

• 1951 - Dutilleux: Symphony No. 1, in Paris

• 1972 - Copland: Three Latin American Sketches, at Philharmonic Hall (now Avery Fisher Hall) in New York City, by New York Philharmonic conducted by André Kostelanetz

• 1984 - Crumb: A Haunted Landscape, by the New York Philharmonic, Arthur Weisberg conducting