Peter Grimes (Decca). In 1969 Benjamin Britten conducted a fully staged studio performance of his most popular opera for the BBC, with Peter Pears singing the title role that he had created a quarter-century earlier. Now that telecast has been released on home video for the first time ever, and it’s a stunner, a handsomely staged, unexpectedly intimate production that shows us exactly how Pears interpreted the role that made him famous. Britten’s conducting is magnetically compelling, just as it is in the studio recording that he and Pears had made a decade earlier, but you will not soon forget the experience of seeing Pears as Grimes. This is one of four DVDs released as part of the new Britten-Pears Collection, and the others, including a similarly memorable 1966 film of Billy Budd, are no less essential–but Grimes is the place to start (TT).
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
