Opera Synopses: Peter Grimes (Benjamin Britten)
- Peter Grimes the fisherman has had his original apprentice die at sea. An inquest acquits him of actual malpractice, but village gossip regards him as guilty of murder -occasioned by Peter's rough brutality- regardless.
- Despite village sentiment, Ellen Orford agrees to work with Peter to train up a new apprentice, where she'll provide the care, affection and love for the boy that Peter cannot.
- One Sunday shortly therafter, Peter demands to go fishing as he's seen a big shoal of herring, but Ellen objects, reminding him that Sunday is supposed to be the new apprentice's day of rest.
- When Ellen points out Peter has broken his bargain with her, and that the bruise on the apprentice's neck she has just discovered confirms this, he hits her and drags the apprentice off to his hut, to prepare to fish, regardless.
- The villagers, seeing this brutality, organise a posse to stop Peter. They chase him to his hut. Whilst attempting to flee the mob, the new apprentice slips and falls off a cliff, to his death.
- Peter takes to his boat for several days and, when finally landed, is advised by his friends to take the boat back out to sea and to drown himself there. He does so.
- The village gets on with its self-satisfied and self-righteous life as if nothing had happened.
Premiered: London, 1945
Duration: Around 2.5 hours, in three Acts. [...]