'Peter Grimes' review — Allan Clayton is tremendous in this powerful opera revival

Read our review of Peter Grimes, also starring Bryn Terfel, now in performances at the Royal Opera House to 28 May.

Summary

• Benjamin Britten's opera Peter Grimes is directed by Deborah Warner
• The story follows a fisherman accused of a terrible crime
• The Royal Opera House production features Allan Clayton in the title role
• Bryn Terfel is excellent as Captain Balstrode

In Deborah Warner’s 2021 production of Benjamin Britten’s 1945 opera Peter Grimes (this outing marks its first revival, with much of the original cast reprising their roles) set in a post-Brexit seaside town, there’s virtually nothing romantic about the sea, and it can’t even be called bleakly beautiful. Rather, it is a means to an end, and the insularity fosters a mob mentality more akin to the Deep South than what might usually be expected from East Anglia.

It’s a slow simmer over three and a half hours; there’s practically no humour despite the array of small-town archetypes, and the protagonist isn’t exactly sympathetic. The titular fisherman’s young apprentice died of dehydration when their boat veered off course for three days, and an open verdict was declared. Whether or not Grimes was guilty of manslaughter, he didn’t treat the boy with any care while he was in his charge and his new apprentice, who is about to arrive from the workhouse, is unlikely to fare any better.

The production mixes gritty naturalism with expressionistic qualities, in which Grimes’s late apprentice is represented by an aerialist, Jack Horner. Michael Levine’s abstract set designs feature a sea wall, oilskins and nets, the bleakness accentuated by Peter Mumford’s lighting. Known as “The Borough”, this is a seaside town that certainly hasn’t been gentrified by yuppies priced out of east London (Warner’s programme note explains that the impoverished Jaywick Sands in Essex was an inspiration). The seafront is littered with crates and other paraphernalia suggesting a place of industry but little profit.

Allan Clayton is tremendous in the title role, a bear-like man without a soft centre, whose tenor lingers in the shadows. It’s clear that he hasn’t known much kindness himself and therefore is unable to model a better example. As Ellen Orford, the widowed schoolteacher with whom Grimes has an understanding (you do wonder how they got together), Maria Bengtsson’s crystalline soprano is a little light but she exudes a gently radiant quality. The production also boasts the luxury casting of Bryn Terfel, whose natural authority is ideal for Captain Balstrode, the de facto community leader and a gentle giant in contrast with Clayton’s Grimes’s ball of aggression.

Among the villagers, Jacques Imbrailo’s “apothecary” Ned Keene is a wheeler-dealer wide boy; Catherine Wyn-Rogers is earthy as “Auntie”, the local landlady; and Christine Rice’s laudanum-addled Mrs Sedley is an increasingly malicious stirrer. In the silent role of the new apprentice, the past traumas and hopelessness of his current situation are made clear by the nine-year-old Johnny Imbrailo through his expressive body language.

The production doesn’t overegg the contemporary parallels with its visuals (there are no Reform placards) and the mob scenes are genuinely scary with the burning torches, effigy and sheer number of the crowd (their movement choreographed by Kim Bandstrup). In other respects, the modernisation contradicts the work now that workhouses no longer exist and child labour has been outlawed (perhaps the setting should be viewed as a dystopia in which these Victorian institutions have made a comeback).

The tremendously dramatic conducting of Jakub Hrůša brings out the full dark beauty and power of Britten’s score. It’s unlikely that this powerful outing will mark Warner’s production’s first and last revival.

Peter Grimes is at the Royal Opera House to 28 May. Book Peter Grimes tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk

Photo credit: Peter Grimes (Photos by Tristram Kenton)