Peter Grimes

Concert performance: 6.30pm, Sunday 15 June 2025, St John’s Waterloo, London SE1 8TY

Benjamin Britten: Peter Grimes

Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes has been described as the best English opera since Henry Purcell’s, and has become a popular work in the international operatic repertoire. Premiered in 1945 with the reopening of Sadler’s Wells Opera, which later became English National Opera, Peter Grimes proved an immediate success.

Britten engaged the playwright Montagu Slater to write a libretto and started writing the music in 1944, finishing it a year later. With a large cast and chorus, the work ranges from intimate to epic, while its rather fabulous ‘Sea Interludes’ have a concert life of their own.

Peter Grimes is the story of a loner fisherman whose apprentice has died under suspicious circumstances. His outsider status from a close-knit village is sealed when he assaults Ellen Orford, the only woman who cares for him, and another apprentice dies. He takes his boat to sea and scuttles it, drowning himself, while village life continues without him.

New Palace Opera has previously mounted concert performances of four Britten operas and Peter Grimes draws from the experience and growing talent base of our singers for what we are certain will be a memorable evening. After our sell-out Billy Budd in June 2024, make sure you buy your tickets early. 

This performance of Peter Grimes is given by permission of Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Limited.