Peter Pears on historic Britten DVDs of Grimes and Budd
(July 2008)
Decca has released historic DVDs of Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes and Billy Budd with Peter Pears in the roles he created, as part of a Britten-Pears DVD Collection. Peter Grimes was filmed in colour for a 1969 BBC TV production by Brian Large, conducted by the composer, capturing Pears’ last performance as the haunted fisherman (074 3261). The Billy Budd dates from three years earlier, produced for TV by Basil Coleman and conducted by Charles Mackerras, with Pears as a definitive Captain Vere (074 3256).
“[Pears’] patrician features, with the high forehead and aquiline nose, so perfectly suits Edward Fairfax Vere that this, of all his roles, is the one with which he is most inseparably identified. The film production moves from the old man in his study to the Captain of the Indomitable aboard ship and back again, freely and movingly…
“But if Budd is to be strongly recommended, Grimes has to be urged, passionately: intensely moving, beyond expectations even though those were high… The set built at the Maltings and filmed under difficulties becomes the Borough; it becomes our world as surely as it was the world for that narrow-minded community. Monolithic as a force, the chorus are all individuals and part of a marvellously individuated cast.” Gramophone
Pears can also be heard as Albert Herring on a recording of the English Opera Group at the Theatre Royal in Copenhagen in 1949, with the composer in the pit, recently issued on CD by Nimbus (NI 5824/6). This is a historic document of the work only two years after its premiere with eleven members of the original cast and surprisingly good sound quality.
The Britten Centenary is in 2013. To discuss your advance plans, contact the Promotion Department by email on composers.uk@boosey.com
> Further information on Work: Peter Grimes
Photo: BBC
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