Bryan Drake

A version of Benjamin Britten's opera based on the Melville story. Will the virtuous young sailor Billy Budd be hanged for murder?

BBC 1975. Jack Point and his sweetheart Elsie come to the Tower to earn money with which to buy medicine for her sick mother. Elsie is persuaded to become the secret bride of Fairfax 'to be beheaded in an hour,' but then he escapes.

This 1969 BBC production is about as close as we can get to a definitive version of Benjamin Britten's PETER GRIMES, one of the greatest 20th Century operas. The story of the individualistic fisherman hounded by his neighbors who believe he murdered his young apprentice packs tremendous emotional power. The compelling narrative is richly enhanced by its subtexts: the lone outsider versus the conformist mob; the dreamer of improbable dreams that lead to tragedy; the artist (dreamer) versus the Philistines, and the homosexual overtones of Grimes' abuse of his child apprentices. Britten is conductor of his work and tenor Peter Pears is Grimes, 25 years after he created the title role at the opera's premiere. As the widow Ellen Orford, soprano Heather Harper is magnificent. Best of all, the sea is an ever-present actor here. When we don't see it in the background it exerts its presence in the abundant visual references to nets, barrels, and other paraphernalia of a seaside fishing village.

Tony Palmer's documentary about the staging of Britten's choral work.