Peter Grimes On Aldeburgh Beach

Screening Dates:
Thu 5 September 8:30pm

This extraordinary event, part of the celebrations to mark the centenary of Benjamin Britten’s birth, is a recording of a live performance of the landmark open-air staging by Aldeburgh Music.

The role of Grimes is sung by Alan Oke, who received huge critical acclaim for his portrayal of Aschenbach in the 2007 Aldeburgh Festival production of Death in Venice.

Fisherman Peter Grimes is an outsider in the community of misfits and eccentrics who populate the Borough, a fictionalised version of the village of Aldeburgh in Suffolk. Is he responsible for the death of his young apprentice? Is he mad, evil, or a misunderstood visionary?

Britten’s viscerally beautiful masterpiece has captured audiences’ imaginations worldwide ever since its premiere in 1945, transforming the sadistic fisherman of The Borough, the poem by George Crabbe on which the opera is based, into an enigmatic anti-hero.

***** “An extraordinary spectacle at the water’s edge” The Independent (Read full review)

**** “This was a special and extraordinary occasion. Happily, it was filmed and can be experienced in the comfort of the cinema later in the year.” The Telegraph (Read full review)

**** “It’s a remarkable, and surely unrepeatable achievement.” The Guardian (Read full review)