"The tenor Anthony Dean Griffey navigates the straits between utterance and intention with great deftness, making his Peter one of the most textured and subtle characters to dominate the Met's vast stage in a long time." - New York Magazine
"[T]he superb Anthony Dean Griffey offers not only a complex character, not easily fathomed, but couches it in some of the most lyrical tenor work one is likely to hear this season." - Seen and Heard
"…a superb musical performance. Donald Runnicles, music director of the San Francisco Opera, conducted with the rough vigor and flexibility that mark his finest efforts, the peerless Metropolitan Opera Orchestra played beautifully and a powerful cast, led by tenor Anthony Dean Griffey in the title role, found the pathos and terror in Britten's score." - San Francisco Chronicle
"Patricia Racette, was superb. The voice was vibrant, liquid, and exciting, as usual; and the technique was near faultless, also as usual." - New York Sun
"Musically, I doubt anyone could ask for a more incisive traversal of the score, conducted with sweeping confidence by, and executed with great precision by the Met Orchestra (whose members applauded the conductor during the ovations)." - Seen and Heard
"A first-class performance, from first to last" - Opernwelt
"Under Donald Runnicles' baton, the Met orchestra makes the sun, the sea and the tragedy come alive." - Variety
Anthony Dean Griffey and Patricia Racette excel in John Doyle's new production of Britten's most celebrated opera, Peter Grimes - filmed live at the Metropolitan Opera.
This new MET production by award-winning director John Doyle (2006 Tony Award® Best Direction of a Musical - Sweeney Todd) of Britten's haunting seaside tale continues EMI Classics' recent collaboration with the Metropolitan Opera : Live in High-Definition series.
Peter Grimes, Britten's second opera, is widely regarded as one of the masterpieces of postwar opera, and its premiere 63 years ago marked a turning point in the history of British Opera. It is now considered a masterwork of 20th Century opera, and since its premiere, it became the first opera by an English composer to enter and remain in the international repertory.
The work is based on a poem by the turn-of-the-19th-century writer George Crabbe entitled The Borough, and is set in an isolated English fishing village in the 1830s. Much of the emotional drive of the opera comes from the six 'Sea Interludes' - calm, storm, at dawn and by moonlight. These are among the most brilliantly evocative music that Britten ever wrote and which help to establish the constant, overpowering presence of the sea as the opera's dominant force.
Anthony Dean Griffey, as Grimes, is 'superb' (San Francisco Chronicle). Patricia Racette, as Ellen Orford, the schoolmistress who tries and fails to rescue Grimes from his anger and self-pity is 'near faultless' (New York Sun).
Donald Runnicles, music director of the San Francisco Opera, "drew an inspired performance from the Met Orchestra, full of passion and commitment yet free of bombast. Without slackening the dramatic tension, he found ways of drawing out both the music's austere lyricism and its violent extremes." - Boston Globe
"The more vicious the society, the more vicious the individual" - Benjamin Britten (commenting on Peter Grimes after its premiere in 1945)
Discs: 2 DVD
Format: 1x DVD-9 (DVD1) & 1x DVD-5 (DVD2)
Video Aspect Ratio: 16:9
Region Coding: region free
Language: English
Subtitles: English / German / French / Spanish / Italian
Created by White Label Productions
© EMI Classics, all rights reserved.
