Peter Grimes John Daszak Ellen Orford Janice Watson Balstrode Donald Maxwell Auntie Ann Howard 1st Niece Charlotte Page 2nd Niece Nicola Howard Bob Boles Peter Bronder Swallow Andrew Greenan Mrs Sedley Susan Gorton Rector Neil Jenkins Ned Keene Peter Savidge Hobson Alan Ewing Boy Iain Goosey Dr Crabbe Paul Gyton Conductor Carlo Rizzi Producer Peter Stein Welsh National Opera chorus and orchestra I was expecting the worst of this production, after reports of difficult rehearsals. Perhaps Stein's key insight, that everyone in the Borough is an outsider, works well with a disgruntled cast. Stein also notes the musical eclecticism of Peter Grimes -- he summarizes the required singing styles as Tosca, Wozzeck and West Side Story -- and Carlo Rizzi brings this out, undermining the idea that Britten's characteristic opera style sprang fully formed with Grimes. Certainly, this isn't your average very English Grimes, but then Britten and Pears conceived the opera while in the United States, soon after Paul Bunyan. In this context, Stein's apparently tounge-in-cheek suggestion that Grimes the scapegoated misfit hunted by a posse in a western, is plausible. The atmosphere was generally German-expressionist getting on for film noir. The sets were grey-black, with a grey seascape that was darkened for the storm with lighting and the overall atmosphere was of understated pain. The costumes were 1870s, but the fishermen's gear looked pretty timeless. There were a few bright touches and some bitter humour. Mrs Sedley was very short and bustled like Queen Victoria. She looked like a savage armchair, at one point agressively poking her nose into the statuesque Auntie's cleavage. Auntie and the nieces wore wild-west vulgar costumes and were jollier than often, girls having a good time rather than victims of an oppressive community Janice Watson as Ellen Orford was an earth-mother who clearly didn't see beyond immediately making everyone feel better and was quietly heartbroken by the consequences of bringing the boy for Grimes. Both vocally and dramatically, Watson is going to be a gorgeous Marschallin one day. She is getting something of the mature beauty of Susan Sarandon, though Watson is a lot younger, and Ellen Orford really ought to be more of a frump and a bit patronizing or remote. She is clearly a forerunner of the governess in The turn of the screw, damaging children by her misplaced concern. The rest of the distinguished ensemble cast -- all the usual suspects you could want in a Grimes -- delivered a range of easily identifiable, only genly caricatured, characters, and sang splendidly, as did the chorus. Ann Howard was a particularly robust Auntie. Andrew Keenan as Swallow started out sounding very rough and (after an announcement in the first interval) lost his voice almost completely. Of course, a lot depended on John Daszak as Grimes. Stein clearly took advantage of his hulking appearance to make him something like Frankenstein's monster. He appears looming in the doorway of the pub, and thrashes around in pain, at one point springing back shocked when he realises that he has hurt the boy. Daszak in particular brought out the various musical styles, suggesting perhaps a fragmented personality. This Grimes, like the monster, wasn't heroic in any sense, but destroyed by others' response to to inarticulate attempts to express himself. He's a heavyish tenor, and I wasn't sure whether he really had the notes for the Great Bear, though his pianissimo was very effective. He definitely brought out the music-theatre aspects of the score, for example, at the end of the first scene where he reflects with false optimist on Balstrode's advice to marry Ellen. But he can definitely sing the other styles as well. It's not surprising that he sang Dmitri in Boris Godunov and the tenor scumbags in Candide towards the end of last year. I've seen Grimes only once before, in the ENO production with Philip Langridge, and I have to say that I didn't recognize much of it tonight. But this production held together through extreme clarity about what was going on, some deeply expressive musical passages, especially in the interludes, and a cast that engaged fully with the work. An effective detail was that there were entrances and exits via the auditorium so that, for example, the quasi-lynch mob going in to the inquest seemed to emerge from the audience. We were all denizens of the Borough.