We left at the interval...

Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, Brussels – March 7th 2004 Conductor: Kazushi Ono. Production: Willy Decker. Sets and costumes: John Macfarlane. Peter Grimes: Michael Myers. Ellen Orford: Solveig Kringelborn. Captain Balstrode: Terje Stensvold. Auntie: Anne Collins. First niece: Mary Hegarty. Second niece: Sophie Karthäuser. Bob Boles: Ian Caley. Swallow: David Wilson-Johnson. Mrs. Sedley: Sarah Walker. Rev. Horace Adams: Arild Helleland. Ned Keene: Daniel Broad. Hobson: Brian Bannatyne-Scott. Orchestra and Chorus of La Monnaie. The difference between this production and the one recently on show at the Bastille in Paris could hardly be greater, though both are excellent. The Bastille is vast, La Monnaie is a reasonably-sized 19th-century opera house à l’italienne . The Bastille production (which I also wrote up) puts Tony Blair’s contemporary Britain vividly on stage, with a wealth of detail that some people find distracting: fishermen weigh their fish and load it into a truck while their ...

Opéra National de Paris-Bastille - January 29 2004 Conductor: Roderick Brydon. Production: Graham Vick. Peter Grimes: Anthony Dean Griffey. Ellen Orford: Brigitte Hahn. Captain Balstrode: Peter Sidhom. Auntie: Claire Powell. First Niece: Carolyn Sampson. Second Niece: Valérie Condoluci. Bob Boles: Ian Caley. Swallow: Michael Druiett. Mrs. (Nabob) Sedley: Della Jones. Rev. Horace Adams: Neil Jenkins. Ned Keene: Jason Howard. Hobson: Lynton Black. Orchestra & Chorus of the Opéra National de Paris. The Bastille production of Peter Grimes (Graham Vick) is a model of intelligent, meaningful updating. It sets the story in contemporary Britain against the ambiguous (and highly topical) background of "name-and-shame" hysteria and hype surrounding child abuse and paedophilia. The degree of realism comes as a sharp shock: the people we see on stage are people we might see any day in any number of run-down corners of the UK. Not Aldeburgh, these days a highly respectable middl...