That to See How Britten Handles the Dramatic and Musical Materials In

Home , Albert Herring, English National Opera, Gloriana, Joan Cross, Montagu Slater, Peter Grimes

BOOKS 131 that to see how Britten handles the dramatic and musical materials in the opera is "to discover anew how from private pain the great artist can fashion some- thing that transcends his own individual experience and touches all humanity." Given the audience to which it is directed, the book succeeds superbly. Much of it is challenging and stimulating intellectually, while avoiding exces- sive weightiness, and at the same time, it is entertaining in the very best sense of the word. Its format being what it is, there are inevitable duplications of information, and I personally found the Garbutt and Garvie articles less com- pelling than the remainder of the book. The last two articles of Brett's, excel- lent as they are, also tend to be a little discursive, but these are minor reserva- tions. For anyone who cares for this masterwork of twentieth-century opera, Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/oq/article/4/3/131/1587210 by guest on 01 October 2021 or for Britten and his music, this book is obligatory reading. Carlisle Floyd

Peter Grimes/Gloriana Benjamin Britten English National Opera/Royal Opera Guide 24 Nicholas John, series editor London: John Calder; New York: Riverrun Press, 1983 128 pages, $5.95 (paper)

The English National Opera/Royal Opera Guides, small paperbacks with siz- able contents, are among the best introductions available to the thirty-plus operas published in the series so far. Each guide includes some essays by ac- knowledged authorities on various aspects of its subject, followed by a table of major musical themes, a complete libretto (original language plus transla- tion), a brief bibliography, and a discography. Aimed at the musically educated amateur, these little books are also of value to music professionals looking for reliable, intelligent introductions to particular works. The guide to Britten's Peter Grimes and Gloriana is a worthy member of the English National Opera/Royal Opera series. Its contents are diverse and inter- esting, ranging from E. M. Forster's by now famous article "George Crabbe: The Poet and the Man" to interviews of singers Joan Cross and Peter Pears, who were involved in the original productions of both Grimes and Gloriana. In between, one finds general essays by Peter Porter ("Benjamin Britten's Li- brettos") and Buxton Orr ("Some Reflections on the Operas of Benjamin Britten"); commentaries on the libretto of Gloriana by Michael Holroyd, Rupert Hart-Davis, and librettist William Plomer; and the expected discus- sions of the scores, Stephen Walsh writing on Grimes and Christopher Palmer on Gloriana. Each essay includes insightful and thought-provoking material of interest to any admirer of Britten's works. The librettos provided are, in the 132 BOOKS

case of Peter Grimes, the 1961 revised version with some emendations to bring it into conformity with the text found in the score; and, for Gloriana, the book for the original 1953 production. Photos of performances of both operas are welcome supplements to the text. Peter Grimes, Britten's first major opera, was premiered in June 194s and has become a well-respected member of the relatively small group of modern operas that has been absorbed into the standard repertoire. A work that, like its title character, alternately attracts and repels, its fascination consists in good part in the varied and ever-expanding interpretations that emerge from re- peated exposures to the score. Peter Porter views the work as a kind of folk opera dealing with a whole town and its people, not just with one social out- Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/oq/article/4/3/131/1587210 by guest on 01 October 2021 cast, and sees Grimes as the same "brutal fisherman" as in Crabbe's poem. Thus he finds the "musical personality" of Grimes out of character with the libretto (p. 14), a strange opinion for one who holds to Britten's excellence as a composer of opera. In his Cambridge Opera Handbook on Peter Grimes, Philip Brett not only lines out the ways in which Britten and Montagu Slater's Grimes differs from Crabbe's, but also presents an entirely different interpreta- tion of the character that Britten has created.1 Such conflicts set minds in mo- tion and make for stimulating conversation. Moreover, they point up the fact that, though compact, the English National Opera/Royal Opera Guide presents neither a simple nor a noncommittal introduction to this work. A minor problem in Walsh's essay on Grimes and in the libretto included is that the significance of the bracketed numbers in these texts is never explained. Those who have used English National Opera/Royal Opera Guides before know that the numbers refer to the musical quotations in the thematic guide that precedes the libretto, but first-time readers do deserve some sort of explanation. Palmer's essay on Gloriana is clearer, as the numbered themes are worked into the text; still, there is no explanation of the numbers cited in the libretto. Finally, one might ask, why Gloriana) and wonder too why this lesser- known work is given more space in the guide than is Peter Grimes. This dou- bling up may limit the long-term viability of this litde volume, more so in the United States than in Britain. One might have hoped instead for an introduction to Albert Herring or Billy Budd, two operas more likely than Gloriana to be performed on both sides of the Adantic. This observation, however, reveals more about this reviewer's own interests than about the quality of the book itself. The Peter GrimeslGloriana guide provides a solid introduction to die two operas and leaves the reader wanting to learn more. Karin Pendle NOTES 1. Philip Brett, ed., Benjamin Britten: "Peter Grimes" (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).