Peter Grimes: a 'spine-chilling' operatic experience

Nicky Spence in Welsh National Opera's Peter Grimes Credit.

Nicky Spence's portrayal of Grimes is 'inspired'

(Image credit: Dafydd Owen)

published 10 April 2025

Clouds are gathering over Welsh National Opera (WNO), where funding cuts threaten the future of its larger productions, said Richard Morrison in The Times. The case for keeping them going is well made by WNO's terrific new staging of "Peter Grimes": it's a reminder that if you want a "full-blooded" operatic experience, then "you need the clout of a proper orchestra and chorus". In Melly Still's atmospheric staging, the "razor- sharp playing and spine-chilling singing" of the company's threatened orchestra and chorus bring Benjamin Britten's "still startlingly atmospheric 1945 score" wonderfully to life.

"Peter Grimes" is the tragic story of a lonely, alienated fisherman in a small town on the Suffolk coast, who is responsible for the death of one young apprentice and then for another. Still updates the story from around 1810 to a "callous, tacky 1980s community", and creates a setting that is "symbolic, surreal and stylised": an upturned fishing boat hangs ominously over a largely bare stage.

Her production, said Rian Evans in The Guardian, "brilliantly captures the tortured guilt, small-minded bitching and flashpoints of volatility" among the townsfolk. The tenor Nicky Spence, debuting in the title role, makes a sympathetic Grimes; and the various locals ranged against him are "all equally vividly drawn and sung". Their "mob mentality, baying for blood, has the seething force of a wild and cruel sea".

To my taste, there is too much "fussy quasi-choreographic action" during the sea interludes within Britten's score, said Nicholas Kenyon in The Daily Telegraph. Overall, though, this is a "magnificent show delivered in difficult circumstances". The singing and orchestral playing, conducted by Tomáš Hanus, are superb. Spence's portrayal of Grimes is "inspired", presenting him as a "burly, wide-eyed innocent who gleams with delight at the prospect of fishing". WNO may be "in choppy financial waters", but this excellent staging of Britten's stormiest work "makes a compelling case for keeping it afloat".