Jon Vickers ~ In Conversation (Peter Grimes)

"Ellen, Give Me Your Hand" excerpt followed by discussion

[@Walker-ld3dn]

I think history will show that this is one of the greatest operas and Vickers, clearly, is one of the best tenors - ever. I don't understand why this opera and this artist are not covered and referenced more often.. Spectacular.

[@Operafiend22]

Walker I couldn’t agree more. Vickers was an immense artist. Even at a time when there was no shortage of unique singers with remarkable abilities, Vickers was unique.

[@ettoredipugnar6990]

The Greatest Grimes !!!!

[@MrAristaeus]

Awesome reference to Marc Andre Hamelin at 05:50! It's incredible to think of two giant artists working together, one at the beginning of their careers and one towards the end of his...

[@katherinegoforth5903]

It’s interesting that he wouldn’t say plainly what he felt about Grimes and Britten. “They didn’t understand the greatest of [the opera]” is quite an interesting statement. I wish he had shared what was behind that

[@kymanthony6098]

Britten wrote the opera for his lover, tenor Peter Pears, at a time when homosexuals were persecuted (and prosecuted) in the UK. The opera was meant to be a metaphor for the rejection of homosexuals at that time from society. As Vickers said, they were successful in that endeavour. However, when the opera was revived in 1967 at the Met, Tyrone Guthrie, and Vickers, came to the conclusion that the genius of Peter Grimes was/is that it is an in depth revelation of in a universal sense of rejection and unrequited love. The genius lay in the universality of the message. At the end of his Career, Vickers toyed with the idea of portraying Grimes as a black man in a white fishing village. Would have been very interesting, to say the least.

[@katherinegoforth5903]

@@kymanthony6098 to me Vickers and Guthrie absolutely misunderstood the opera if they thought it was about unrequited love and rejection out of the context of a society

[@katherinegoforth5903]

@@kymanthony6098for me it feels like he’s saying, “if this opera is about a queer subject, it’s not as great of an opera, I have to make it better than it is, I have to change it by my performance.” He thinks greatness is to try to make it a Verdi or Wagner opera - dissolving the distinctness of the piece into the melting pot of the so-called “masterpiece”