Review
Review – Peter Grimes (Royal Opera House, 2026)
Britten’s first major (and successful) opera about an outsider ostracised by the village folk is brought into the present day in the revival of Deborah Warner’s 2022 ROH production of Peter Grimes. Allan Clayton stars in the title role – intense, volatile, defiant, and eventually beaten by an unrelenting mob. The street lamp, single yellow line and low sea wall all provide just enough detail to root this story in the very town it’s said to have been inspired by. The present-day references make this in a places feel a little close to the bone. Montagu Slater’s uncomfortable libretto made even more intense by taut characterisation from the cast, blistering chorus work, and urgent expression from the orchestra that, save for one or two moments where tracked solo lines were slightly misaligned, unequivocally met the psychodrama that is the foundation of the work. Rarely has a production left me quite so unsettled — its already bleak ending is made more so when it’s set in the present day. Bryn Terfel’s usually exaggerated presence works well as Captain Balustrode here. Maria Bengtsson’s Ellen Orford is heartbreaking. The mob with their wicker man and nationalistic flags may well have pushed things more than I felt comfortable with, though arguably that’s the point of good art. Bleak is good. I needed to take a little time to myself after the second interval.
