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The premičre of Peter Grimes took place sixty years ago on 7 June 1945 reopening the Sadler’s Wells Theatre after the war. Reviews of the first performance described a work of force, vitality and beauty, both intense and astonishing. The music was reported to be original and fascinating, its emotional force powerfully defining the atmosphere. Eric Blom in the Birmingham Post described a score ‘full of eerie sounds, of tense terrifying silences, of monotonous sea waves’. He praised the opera as ‘a modern work of the first importance, a work of genius, an opera so impressive and original that only the most absurd prejudice will keep it out of the great foreign opera houses’. Britten hoped that the positive reception of Peter Grimes would stimulate English opera and encourage other English composers to write for the stage. Three weeks after the premičre Britten wrote to Imogen Holst ‘I think the occasion is actually a greater one than either Sadler’s Wells or me, I feel. Perhaps it is an omen for English Opera in the future. Anyhow I hope that many composers will take the plunge, & I hope also that they’ll find as I did the water not quite so icy as expected!’ |
