Benjamin Britten’s first brilliant opera, Peter Grimes, rests on ambiguity about the nature of abusive behavior, the source of compassion, the chicken-and-egg relationship between tormented minds and small-town narrowness. increase.
But at least one thing was clear. this work is back Go to the Metropolitan Opera on Sunday afternoon: The company is starring tenor Alan Clayton.
An established singer abroad, Clayton made her MET debut this year after working tirelessly in the title role of Brett Dean’s “Hamlet.” A few months later, he’s at the apex of the company’s ‘Grimes’ revival. Agile, with a repertoire that includes Handel alongside Kurt Weill’s The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, he promises a prosperous future if you have him at home.
Grimes of Clayton, not only in his appearance, but with his windswept hair and wispy beard, looks uniformly neat, as if his fellow residents of Borough follow a dress code. He bobs his head with wide-open, piercing eyes, is never peaceful, and is paranoid about how others perceive him. His tone in his visible destiny conveys bitterness and pain in the same melodic line, and his face expresses bouts of anger and shock at his own actions. By the climactic third act, his voice embodies the essence of opera as the height of theatrical expression. His insane scenes, chest-pounding and patchwork monologues of stylized ugliness are of horror and wonder.
his performance reminiscent of Fearless benchmark recordings from Jon Vickers From the 1970s, it’s nearly enough to breathe sustainable life into a production that often lacks it.John Doyle’s staging from 2008 unfolds in a unit set of towering shabby wooden walls and windows. but shows its antiquity as it creaks back and forth for the two and a half hours of the opera.
Doyle’s signature approach — though he’s been called a minimalist, he prefers the “essentialist” — was born in an understated black-box space, eventually appearing on Broadway in Steven Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd” and “Sweeney Todd.” Company” and won a Tony Award. His “Grimes” is a relic of its time, but not as successful in 2022. His stripped-down aesthetic can reveal the heart of his work, but it relies on detailed, well-rehearsed performances that short turnarounds don’t deliver. Met revival. As such, the cast members tend to sing with little nuance to the audience rather than to each other, mostly standing in place like a concert.
Still, Clayton wasn’t the only one who transcended production. Nicholas Carter, who also made his Met debut as conductor of ‘Hamlet’, here guided ‘Grimes’ with ambition, precision and pictorialism that gave the work a cohesive form of tone poem. . His interludes evoked a dark, sea-like vastness. Hard bends and waves. A new promise of the dawn sun. They were the source of theaters that lacked staging.
Nicole Carr, who played a widowed female teacher who desperately believed in Grimes’ salvation, was also dynamic. Carr’s soprano, with lyrical grace at the top of her range and serious urgency at the bottom, was Sunday a fountain of calm and pathos. Mixed with beauty, they play a duet of disturbing harmonies.
And despite moving as a unit and remaining stationary for a long time afterwards, the Mets’ chorus was convincing as a chatty, destructive borough inhabitant. giving voice, complementing Clayton’s unraveling in act three with a chilling climax of their own. Justin Austin’s lively Ned Keen. Authoritative Swallows by Patrick Curfizzi. Michaela Martens’ deeply comic Mrs. Sedley.
Mezzo-soprano Dennis Graves, as her aunt, was unconvincing in a performance that was simply musical rather than idiosyncratic. Bass-baritone Adam Prachetka played the role of Bulstrode. His voice was beautiful but consistently bland, and Prachetka gave Grimes the fateful instruction at the end of Act 3 — to put his boat out to sea and sink — fear flattening the moment. with wood tone.
I mean, without Clayton’s reaction. He performed the aching final aria with only his eyes.
Peter Grimes
At the Metropolitan Opera in Manhattan until November 12th. metopera.org.