Peter GrimesIngela Brimberg as Ellen Orford
Benjamin Britten · First performed London, 1945
Britten's drama of an outsider in a small fishing town, and the schoolmistress who tries to save him.
The opera
In a fishing village on the English east coast, the fisherman Peter Grimes is suspected of causing the death of his young apprentice. The inquest finds it an accident, but the townspeople remain hostile. Only the widowed schoolmistress Ellen Orford and the retired captain Balstrode stand by him.
Ellen helps Grimes find a new apprentice, but when she sees signs that the boy has been mistreated, they quarrel. The boy dies in an accident at Grimes's hut on the cliff, and the town turns into a mob. Balstrode advises the exhausted Grimes to sail out and sink his boat, while Ellen looks on, and the village goes about its business as if nothing has happened.
Ingela Brimberg as Ellen Orford
Ingela Brimberg sang Ellen Orford in her first role at the Royal Swedish Opera, in 2013.
Reviews
“Ingela Brimberg in her first role at the Royal Opera was a sensationally good Ellen Orford, vocally glowing and heroic, scenically vulnerable and affecting.”