Word: britten
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Peter Grimes, by Britain's gifted young Benjamin Britten (TIME, Feb. 16), was unquestionably a success-the most successful new opera the Met had put on in years. It was not, however, the success it had been in Europe. The Met had lavished great care on it: the chorus sang well, Emil Cooper's orchestra did handsomely by Britten's tricky music (the best of his music is written for the orchestra, not for the soloists). But the Met just couldn't break itself of its old habits. Frederick Jagel neither looked nor acted the difficult...
Back in England, a Conscientious Objectors Tribunal exempted Britten from war service, but he gave concerts in bomb shattered towns...
...while, he lived with his married sister Beth, but found it difficult to compose while Beth's children played trains under his feet, or left sticky traces of jam on the piano. Then he and Librettist Slater moved to Snape in Suffolk, to a windmill which Britten had remodeled as a house. There they plunged into Peter Grimes. Slater would work up in a bedroom, and shout down to Benjy, lolling on the grass, "How do you like this line?" They took long walks over the bleak Suffolk downs, saying nothing to each other, each busy with...
...evenings, Slater and Britten cycled to the local pub to drink beer and play darts. Says Mrs. Slater: "I had to make a rule they should speak to me at mealtimes...
Harsh & Helpless. When Britten finally got the surging dissonances and powerful choruses of Peter Grimes on paper, England had its biggest homegrown musical event since the Edwardian era triumphs of Sir Edward Elgar. The London Times pronounced Peter Grimes "a great opera ... its success is deserved and inevitable...