Inflammatory Peter Grimes

Netia Jones's sets Britten's opera alight

This is an edited version of a review which first appeared in Jan Geisbusch’s German translation on the Oper! Magazin’s website. I republish the English original, free to all subscribers, by kind permission of the editor, Dr. Ulrich Ruhnke

In Grimes’s hut: Joachim Bäckström (Peter), Gustaf Sporsén (John) Picture © Cordula Trema

For British critics, the international popularity of Peter Grimes, Britten’s astonishing first opera,has always been a marvel to behold. In the immediate aftermath of the 1945 premiere at Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London, productions quickly proliferated across the world. Within a year the first Swedish performance found the great Wagnerian tenor Set Svanholm (a very different voice from the title role’s creator, Peter Pears) taking on the opera’s anti-hero — a rough fisherman and serial child abuser, whom Britten somehow transformed into a visionary, capable of spellbinding utterance in ‘Now the Great Bear and Pleiades’.

Sweden’s second city, Gothenburg, is no stranger to Peter Grimes. This season’s new production by British director, designer and video artist Netia Jones is the third it has seen over the past half-century. Its protagonist is Joachim Bäckström, a sometime Tamino who now sings big Wagner parts. His Gothenburg Grimes may lack the charisma of a Philip Langridge or a Ben Heppner, but he is vocally solid and a fine actor: he looks the part of a wiry, lived-in fisherman. In Jones’s striking production, he comes across as socially awkward, prone to shocking violence when challenged by Ellen’s ‘Peter, we’ve failed’. Bäckström takes his place at the heart of an outstanding ensemble. It's a measure of Jones’s success – and of the conductor Christoph Gedschold, who also led Oper Leipzig’s ‘Grimes’ in 2023 – that an all-Swedish cast can triumph in an opera rarely seen without any involvement from British singers.

From Gothenburg Opera’s ensemble: Katerina Karnéus (Auntie) Tobias Westman (Reverend Adams) Mats Almgren (Swallow) Pictures © Cordula Treml

Jones has something of a reputation as a Britten specialist in her native UK, largely on the strength of two quite different productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream — at Aldeburgh in 2017 and Garsington last summer. Prized for her integrated use of video footage, which proved crucial to the success of Gothenburg’s Grimes, she sets the action on a simple platform which could be part of an oil rig – the films in the first and third acts suggest as much – while also using video elsewhere to suggest the abiding presence of the sea. Its crucial significance is implied in the tragedies of Grimes’s apprentices (the drowned William Spode, mentioned in the opening court scene, and the mute actor John), both of whom appear on stage and screen to heart-rending effect. The ‘interior’ scenes are suggested by diagrammatic projections, but there is also a small three-dimensional structure which serves as both a place of worship – it reminded me of the Norwegian Church on Cardiff Bay – and, turned round, as Grimes’s sparsely furnished hut.

Radiant Ellen: Matilda Sterby Picture © Cordula Treml

The essential simplicity of Jones’s scenario, placing the action around the 1970s, puts the theatrical burden on the ‘The Borough’, and here the Gothenburg ensemble scores spectacularly — not least through the casting of the principals. Ellen Orford, sung by the radiant soprano Matilda Sterby, stands at the heart of the community, a blue-stocking schoolteacher who takes a moral stand against the bigotry, prejudice and sheer hatred of the townspeople, before being overwhelmed by the tragic course of events. Ellen’s fortitude is underpinned by Sterby’s shining soprano, a voice capable of rising over the big ensembles, while also making something special of her lyrical contributions. The top line of the quartet with Auntie (Katerina Karnéus) and the Nieces (Sofie Apslund, Mia Karlsson) was gorgeously sung, as indeed was her big Act 3 ‘Embroidery’ aria.

Åke Zetterström’s Balstrode is a gnarly old sea-dog with a limp, who shows solidarity with Grimes until the disappearance – and presumed death – of the second apprentice, when he realises the game is over for his friend. All the cameo parts are vividly played and sung: Karnéus, the best-known singer outside Sweden, might look tarty but she never relies on blatant vulgarity as Auntie, while Katarina Giotas is her beady counterfoil as the busybody-cum-amateur sleuth, Mrs Sedley. Equally characterful are the lawyer Swallow (the vocally indisposed Mats Almgran, whose part was sung from the side of the stage by Martin Andersson), the Methodist fanatic Bob Boles (Daniel Ralphson), the Reverend Adams (Tobias Westman), the quack apothecary Ned Keene (Hannes Öberg) and Carter Hobson (Kristian Lindroos), whose rhythmically exact drum beat rouses a terrifying choral lynch mob.

Demonic orgy of hellfire: the Lynch-mob scene of Netia Jones’s Peter Grimes Picture © Cordula Treml

The third act is the setting for Jones’s most astonishing coup de théâtre — an orgy of anger growing out of a Halloween-style party, with citizenry dressed in scarlet costumes and demon hats against the backdrop of the spectacular blaze of an oil spill. Here the chorus comes into its own, the cries of ‘Peter Grimes!’ shatteringly delivered. The orchestral performance in the famous interludes reveal Gedschold as a Britten interpreter of the front rank: with only one interval (after Act 1), the German conductor maintains a theatrical momentum that underlines Jones’s inflammatory scenography in every scene. Incandescent.

Cast & Creatives

Peter Grimes: Göteborgs Operan

Peter Grimes Joachim Bäckström Ellen Orford Matilda Sterby Captain Balstrode Åke Zetterström Auntie Katarina Karnéus Nieces Sofie Asplund, Mia Karlsson Swallow Mats Almgren (sung offstage by Martin Andersson) Bob Boles Daniel Ralphsson Mrs Sedley Katarina Giotas Reverend Horace Adams Tobias Westman Ned Keene Hannes Öberg Carter Hobson Kristian Lindroos Apprentices Gustaf Sporsèn, Noa Flenser

Conductor Christoph Gedschold Director/Designer/Video Netia Jones/Lightmap Lighting Ellen Ruge

Performance attended 20 March, 2025

website: opera.se

Last performances: March 30, April 3