Vienna State Opera: Peter Grimes

08/02/22

The Edinburgh Music Review is largely about covering music in Scotland, but occasionally we are tempted abroad by operatic jewels and this production of ‘Peter Grimes’ looked likely to be the operatic event of the year with Jonas Kaufmann the biggest name in opera at present as Grimes, Lise Davidsen, the most exciting soprano in the world, as Ellen Orford and Sir Bryn Terfel stalwart international baritone, as Balstrode. 

Firstly let me begin with some caveats, this 26-year old production is somewhat minimalist and owes more to the psychoanalytic concerns of Vienna than a Suffolk fishing village! For example, Grimes’ boat doesn’t look as if it would survive in a paddling pool never mind the sea. Furthermore, it’s true that Jonas Kaufmann doesn’t sound English, and that Lise Davidsen’ s voice is occasionally too big for the part of Ellen Orford. And the jolly scenes outside the pub tend to turn into an orgy, something I doubt Britten intended! 

Despite these caveats I have to say that this production of Grimes was musically the best I have heard  in over 50 years of opera going and it was received by a roar of approval from a very full Vienna audience, no small achievement for a “difficult for Europeans” English opera. 

Jonas Kaufmann doesn’t have an English accent, but his interpretation of Grimes was vocally superb, and his acting conveyed the mental anguish of Grimes. At times Lise Davidsen blew everyone off the stage with that big voice, but what a voice, surely the most powerful and beautiful soprano voice in the world today. Her empathetic acting of Ellen Orford was perfect.  Contrary to some other reviewers’ view, I thought Bryn Terfel gave a very sound account of Balstrode. Yes, he hasn’t the voice he had 20 years ago, but it was quite good enough and he got a warm reception from the audience. 

The other parts were adequately covered although sometimes “over the top” in their acting, and the chorus were very good. But the real stars of the evening were Simone Young, conducting the musicians of the Vienna Philharmonic. I have never heard the fabulous music of Britten so electrically played as last night. Kaufmann and Davidsen got very warm responses at the curtain call, but Simone Young and the musicians rightly got the biggest applause of all. It was one of those operas often better heard than seen, yet you wouldn’t want to miss the fine acting of Kaufmann and Davidsen despite the conceptual production. 

My first visit to the Vienna opera some 25 years ago was with a former Austrian minister of culture then a colleague in the European Parliament. I noted then how few women musicians there were in the orchestra and she said she had been encouraging them to increase the number of women. Well here there were a few more women. I had invited my old colleague to attend the opera, and she said they now had closed screening for recruitment and more women were being recruited. Whatever the numbers of women last night, we both agreed they sounded superb, and the achievement of a female conductor was truly historic. 

Finally, going to the opera in Vienna is still difficult, but you no longer need to take a Covid test 2 days before the opera. You do need your Covid Vaccination passport and you have to be fully masked (with an FFP2 mask) throughout. it’s not pleasant, but for a performance like this it’s worth it. Vienna is the busiest opera house in the world with over 300 performances a year. Despite the pandemic it’s managing to keep a full programme of operas going, aided by generous state support and for that it deserves credit. 

For me this was my best live opera experience since I saw the last night of ‘Fidelio’ at Covent Garden two years ago, just before lockdown. Come to think of it, that also starred Jonas Kaufmann and Lise Davidsen. As one of Vienna’s great psychiatrists, Jung, might say, “synchronistic”!