WNO Peter Grimes

[Ein Heldenleben]

I think last night was the last performance of the WNO season . It ended , magnificently, in Plymouth with an outstanding performance of Peter Grimes. At its core wonderful singing from the chorus and playing from an orchestra playing out of their skins. Nicky Spence’s Grimes was one of the best sung I’ve ever heard and certainly the best acted. He was on stage through the interludes with four young dancers in a series of superbly constructed mime / dances. It was above all an outstanding ensemble performance from a company under huge and undeserved threat. They should be doubling their grant. They are tremendous ambassadors for Wales and I noticed so many Welsh names in the character roles . Come on Arts Council of Wales get your act together …

PS the thread title should be in Caps

[Petrushka]

I think last night was the last performance of the WNO season . It ended , magnificently, in Plymouth with an outstanding performance of Peter Grimes. At its core wonderful singing from the chorus and playing from an orchestra playing out of their skins. Nicky Spence’s Grimes was one of the best sung I’ve ever heard and certainly the best acted. He was on stage through the interludes with four young dancers in a series of superbly constructed mime / dances. It was above all an outstanding ensemble performance from a company under huge and undeserved threat. They should be doubling their grant. They are tremendous ambassadors for Wales and I noticed so many Welsh names in the character roles . Come on Arts Council of Wales get your act together …

PS the thread title should be in Caps

If you go into the 'edit' function you can change the header yourself. I did so the other day with one of mine.

[Ein Heldenleben]

If you go into the 'edit' function you can change the header yourself. I did so the other day with one of mine.

Tried that three times and it defaults to lower case ..must be a bug in there ..l

[Pulcinella]

Tried that three times and it defaults to lower case ..must be a bug in there ..l

I'm not sure that you can once you've posted: perhaps t's not an editable field.

However, I have permission on certain threads and this is one, so I've done it.

It's being broadcast on 21 June 2025.


Britten's Peter Grimes

Opera on 3


Welsh National Opera, led by Tomáš Hanus, present this gripping production of Britten’s pivotal operatic masterpiece at Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff. In the storm-swept costal community of Borough, fisherman Peter Grimes is an outsider, regarded with distain by many of his neighbours. When tragedy strikes, contempt turns to suspicion. Peter is driven to breaking point, and Borough’s colourful and wittily-drawn inhabitants begin to look and behave like a mob. Tenor, Nicky Spence leads a large ensemble cast, including Sally Matthews, David Kempster, Sarah Connolly and Catherine Wyn-Rogers - alongside the massed voices of the Chorus of Welsh National Opera. Donald Macleod presents, and is joined by theatre historian, Sarah Lenton, to unpack some of the history behind this work and the special qualities of this new production.

Britten: Peter Grimes

Peter Grimes ..... Nicky Spence (tenor)
Ellen Orford ..... Sally Matthews (soprano)
Captain Balstrode ..... David Kempster (baritone)
Ned Keene ..... Dominic Sedgwick (baritone)
Bob Boles ..... Oliver Johnston (tenor)
Auntie ..... Dame Sarah Connolly (mezzo soprano)
First Niece ..... Fflur Wyn (soprano)
Second Niece ..... Eiry Price (soprano)
Mrs Sedley ..... Catherine Wyn-Rogers (mezzo soprano)
Swallow, a lawyer ..... Sion Goronwy (bass)
Reverend Horace Adams ..... Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts (tenor)
Hobson, a carrier ..... Callum Thorpe (bass)
Dr Crabbe ..... Helen Jarmany (mezzo soprano)
John ..... Maya Marsh
Orchestra and Chorus of Welsh National Opera
Tomáš Hanus (conductor)

[Roger Webb]

I'm not sure that you can once you've posted: perhaps t's not an editable field.

However, I have permission on certain threads and this is one, so I've done it.

It's being broadcast on 21 June 2025.


Britten's Peter Grimes

Opera on 3


Welsh National Opera, led by Tomáš Hanus, present this gripping production of Britten’s pivotal operatic masterpiece at Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff. In the storm-swept costal community of Borough, fisherman Peter Grimes is an outsider, regarded with distain by many of his neighbours. When tragedy strikes, contempt turns to suspicion. Peter is driven to breaking point, and Borough’s colourful and wittily-drawn inhabitants begin to look and behave like a mob. Tenor, Nicky Spence leads a large ensemble cast, including Sally Matthews, David Kempster, Sarah Connolly and Catherine Wyn-Rogers - alongside the massed voices of the Chorus of Welsh National Opera. Donald Macleod presents, and is joined by theatre historian, Sarah Lenton, to unpack some of the history behind this work and the special qualities of this new production.

Britten: Peter Grimes

Peter Grimes ..... Nicky Spence (tenor)
Ellen Orford ..... Sally Matthews (soprano)
Captain Balstrode ..... David Kempster (baritone)
Ned Keene ..... Dominic Sedgwick (baritone)
Bob Boles ..... Oliver Johnston (tenor)
Auntie ..... Dame Sarah Connolly (mezzo soprano)
First Niece ..... Fflur Wyn (soprano)
Second Niece ..... Eiry Price (soprano)
Mrs Sedley ..... Catherine Wyn-Rogers (mezzo soprano)
Swallow, a lawyer ..... Sion Goronwy (bass)
Reverend Horace Adams ..... Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts (tenor)
Hobson, a carrier ..... Callum Thorpe (bass)
Dr Crabbe ..... Helen Jarmany (mezzo soprano)
John ..... Maya Marsh
Orchestra and Chorus of Welsh National Opera
Tomáš Hanus (conductor)

I wonder if this is the same production WNO have used several times (John Copley?)..I must have seen it three or four times if it is....it starts, after the coroner's court scene, with a 'still' sepia 'photo' in the style of Emerson that comes to life while the first interlude plays. I think John Mitchinson was the first Grimes, along with Josephine Barstow as Ellen Orford.

Didn't we meet you in Oxford and stay over after a perf of Grimes? So long ago, neither of us can remember!

[Pulcinella]

I wonder if this is the same production WNO have used several times (John Copley?)..I must have seen it three or four times if it is....it starts, after the coroner's court scene, with a 'still' sepia 'photo' in the style of Emerson that comes to life while the first interlude plays. I think John Mitchinson was the first Grimes, along with Josephine Barstow as Ellen Orford.

Didn't we meet you in Oxford and stay over after a perf of Grimes? So long ago, neither of us can remember!

Quite possibly.
Dear Diaries for those years will have been ditched in one of our house moves, but an Excel spreadsheet I have gives 05/03/1999 as a WNO performance of Peter Grimes in Oxford that I went to, which would be about right timings-wise. Boheme the following night.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I wonder if this is the same production WNO have used several times (John Copley?)..I must have seen it three or four times if it is....it starts, after the coroner's court scene, with a 'still' sepia 'photo' in the style of Emerson that comes to life while the first interlude plays. I think John Mitchinson was the first Grimes, along with Josephine Barstow as Ellen Orford.

Didn't we meet you in Oxford and stay over after a perf of Grimes? So long ago, neither of us can remember!

Last nights was a brand new production and has been very well reviewed,. The director was deservedly beckoned onto stage last night by Nicky Spence for a well earned ovation. It was clear that for this great company this final performance was a very special occasion.
My first encounter with WNO was at the New Theatre for Elektra with Willard White and Pauline Tinsley in 1977 . I sincerely hope they are around for my fiftieth anniversary.

[Roger Webb]

Last nights was a brand new production and has been verey well reviewed,. The director was deservedly beckoned onto stage last night by Nicky Spence for a well earned ovation. It was clear that for this great company this final performance was a very special occasion.
My first encounter with WNO was at the New Theatre for Elektra with Willard White and Pauline Tinsley in 1977 . I sincerely hope they are around for my fiftieth anniversary.

Thanks for that....we should really still go to WNO, easy when we lived in Bristol, difficult, but feasible where we are now. I saw just about every production of WNO from just a year after your Elektra......was it not 1978?..I remember that year as it was the first run of the Copley Grimes I mention.....and I saw Reggie Goodall's Tristan with Linda Esther Gray in '79, I'm sure.

WNO seem in straightened circumstances.....even the Cardiff Singer of the World is cancelled, I read....my Welsh wife is, perhaps even more disappointed by the state of opera in Wales, than by that of Welsh rugby!

[Roger Webb]

Quite possibly.
Dear Diaries for those years will have been ditched in one of our house moves, but an Excel spreadsheet I have gives 05/03/1999 as a WNO performance of Peter Grimes in Oxford that I went to, which would be about right timings-wise. Boheme the following night.

That would be about right....we didn't stay for the Bohème....I had to get my Musetta home or she'd kick up a fuss.....usually in the Café!

[Ein Heldenleben]

Thanks for that....we should really still go to WNO, easy when we lived in Bristol, difficult, but feasible where we are now. I saw just about every production of WNO from just a year after your Elektra......was it not 1978?..I remember that year as it was the first run of the Copley Grimes I mention.....and I saw Reggie Goodall's Tristan with Linda Esther Gray in '79, I'm sure.

WNO seem in straightened circumstances.....even the Cardiff Singer of the World is cancelled, I read....my Welsh wife is, perhaps even more disappointed by the state of opera in Wales, than by that of Welsh rugby!

Yes it was 78 in student days when things were a bit of a blur . The Goodall Tristan for me was 81 at the Dominion Tottenham Court Road - a good venue I think .

[LMcD]

Tried that three times and it defaults to lower case ..must be a bug in there ..l

I was once told that a thread title comprising exclusively capitals can come across as a written equivalent of shouting - hence 'FNiMN'.

[Roger Webb]

Yes it was 78 in student days when things were a bit of a blur . The Goodall Tristan for me was 81 at the Dominion Tottenham Court Road - a good venue I think .

In '78 I was 28, student days a long way behind.....why, I was almost grown up!! '81 was my first Fidelio with the young Anne Evans...later our Brunhilde in the WNO Ring.....did you see it when it toured to Covent Garden?....I still have a 'private' recording made when Radio 3 broadcast it - to this day it sounds well sung, and conducted by Richard Armstrong.

[Ein Heldenleben]

In '78 I was 28, student days a long way behind.....why, I was almost grown up!! '81 was my first Fidelio with the young Anne Evans...later our Brunhilde in the WNO Ring.....did you see it when it toured to Covent Garden?....I still have a 'private' recording made when Radio 3 broadcast it - to this day it sounds well sung, and conducted by Richard Armstrong.

Sadly by the mid 80’s I was then doing one of those shift patterns that made booking operas months in advance a tad tricky. Not a problem with most operas but with “hot tickets “ not so easy .One of the disadvantages of working in broadcasting or any indeed unpredictable job.

[Roslynmuse]

In '78 I was 28, student days a long way behind.....why, I was almost grown up!! '81 was my first Fidelio with the young Anne Evans...later our Brunhilde in the WNO Ring.....did you see it when it toured to Covent Garden?....I still have a 'private' recording made when Radio 3 broadcast it - to this day it sounds well sung, and conducted by Richard Armstrong.

I saw that production twice, in Liverpool. It was also shown on BBC2 - I keep hoping a video will surface on YouTube...

[Roger Webb]

I saw that production twice, in Liverpool. It was also shown on BBC2 - I keep hoping a video will surface on YouTube...

I assume you mean the Fidelio was televised on BBC 2..... not the Ring! I didn't know it had been, I never saw it - mind you, I hardly watched TV in those days...still don't much! It is a great shame that the WNO Ring wasn't filmed though, it was a period when that might have happened; the 90s were very much the highpoint of opera in this country......so sadly undervalued now.