It is by no means the case that Benjamin Britten’s opera “Peter Grimes”, premiered in 1945, would lead a shadowy existence in the repertoire. If you only look at the immediate surroundings, you will find the work in Augsburg and Munich on the schedules. And now also in Nuremberg. The more often an opera can be found on the stage, the more a radical approach is legitimate, after all it is only one possible variant of the interpretation. Tilman Knabe’s production leaves little to be desired in terms of unambiguousness. It came out in Dortmund six years ago, from where the director Jens-Daniel Herzog took it to Nuremberg. And Knabe tightened it up again here.
Britten’s operas are in themselves masterpieces of floating puzzles. With “Peter Grimes” this can be determined very nicely by the transformation of the text into an opera. The story comes from George Crabbe’s 200-year-old short story “The Borough”. In it, Grimes is clearly a fiend who, after a hard childhood, becomes a perpetrator, vents his anger on his apprentice and kills three. The opera now begins with a trial of Grimes the fisherman for the death of one such apprentice. The court decides on an accident, but the rumor of his possible guilt remains. The second death of a boy towards the end of the opera takes place off the scene, but could also easily be interpreted as an accident.
Grimes fishes tirelessly because he wants to get rich, to gain recognition in the village. And because he wants to marry Ellen, a widowed teacher, and buy a house for them both. The relationship between the two flickers, you really don’t know what’s going on between them, how close they really are. Tilman boy knows. The stage opens like a shutter, Ellen and Grimes lie in his bed, sleeping, he is tormented by nightmares, hears the voices from the court hearing in his head – on stage they come from the off.
All are losers
As a result, Knabe, with a lot of juice and the support of Eva-Mareike Uhlig (costumes) and Annika Haller as well as Wilfried Buchholz (stage), designs a filthy company that hangs out at a campsite. You drink, stagger and live out your urges. Everybody’s a loser, the pharmacist deals, the priest is horny, the girls are teasing. Lots of garish but well drawn, well sung characters. The real boss is the killer Sangmin Lee, great, who is less captain than Oberrocker here. Strange that Grimes wants to be part of this bunch.
Ellen soon discovers child porn in Grimes’ laptop (you don’t see it, you know it), and how Emily Newton, who has an outstanding voice anyway, plays it, the pain, the horror, the recognition, that’s stunning. And she remains stunning in her character’s ambivalence of wanting to help but not being able to help. To two of Britten’s great interludes, which tell of the inner roar as well as that of nature, Knabe projects onto the curtain the report of the case of a child molester and murderer, statistics about abuse. Grimes’ case is perfectly clear here, the second apprentice is then also seen dead in Grimes’ bed, all covered in blood.
Peter Marsh renders the anger and despair of grimes vivid, his tenor shines brightly, his rage is frightening. But he has no more secrets, he is driven. The people hunt him down, he wants to be castrated, then commits suicide far out at sea, Ellen and the rocker captain become a couple. That’s all well told, no question. But the Grimes case is, if not an isolated case, at least an individual fate, is not evoked by society. And the music, conducted with force by Lutz de Veer, is as unmistakable as the staging. But somehow soulless, glistening, metallic.