Great Performances at the Met: Peter Grimes

Sunday, May 18 at 1 p.m.

Opera’s ultimate outsider, Peter Grimes, comes heart-achingly alive in high definition and 5.1 digital surround sound when Great Performances at the Met: Peter Grimes airs Sunday, May 18 at 1 p.m. on WXXI-TV 21 (cable 11) and WXXI-HD (cable 1011 and DT 21.1). As personified by American tenor Anthony Dean Griffey, in Tony Award-winner John Doyle’s new production, Benjamin Britten’s brutal haunted hero takes on fresh urgency and meaning.

Did the fisherman abuse — even cause the deaths of — the boy apprentices in his care? Most of the inhabitants of the setting’s coastal English village think so, yet it is they whom Britten finally implicates in this classic examination of guilt and judgment.

“Among the true masterpieces of the 20th century,” wrote The New York Times, citing the production’s many elements that “seemed so right, starting with the breakthrough portrayal by Griffey, an elegant singer and courageous actor overdue for a starring role at the Met.” The paper praised veteran conductor Donald Runnicles for his “colorful and impassioned account of the score” and singled out soprano Patricia Racette, as schoolmistress Ellen Orford who befriends Grimes, for bringing “vocal richness and vulnerability to her subtle portrayal.”

Completing the large cast are baritone Anthony Michaels-Moore as Grimes’ only other friend, Captain Balstrode; bass-baritone John Del Carlo as Swallow; mezzo-soprano Felicity Palmer as gossipy widow Mrs. Sedley; mezzo-soprano Jill Grove as the village madam Auntie; tenor Greg Fedderly as Bob Boles; and baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes as quack apothecary Ned Keene.

The best known of the 13 operas by British composer Benjamin Britten (1913-1976), Peter Grimes premiered at London’s Sadler Wells Theatre in 1945 and has remained among the 20th century’s most popular operas since. Its Sea Interludes and Passacaglia, which separate the opera’s scenes, have taken on a life of their own in the standard concert repertory. Montagu Slater wrote the work’s text, based on George Crabbe’s 1810 poem The Borough.

Peter Grimes is the latest HD telecast to air in the weekly 2008 Great Performances at the Met season. Sung in English and featuring set design by Scott Pask and costumes by Ann Hould-Ward, it was recorded on stage at the house March 15, 2008. Gary Halvorson directs for television; Jay Saks is audio producer.

For more information, visit www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/shows/gpatmet.

Pictured: Tenor Anthony Dean Griffey stars as Peter Grimes.
Photo Credit: Nick Heavican/Metropolitan Opera.