Benjamin Britten and Montagu Slater's Peter Grimes

Sam Kinchin-Smith uses the Fourth Wall series’ bracing focus on ‘modern theatre’ to question whether this cornerstone of the operatic repertoire might also be thought of as a theatre text.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 88 pages
Publication date: 14 February 2018
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

This book argues that Peter Grimes, widely considered one of the greatest and most influential operas of the 20th century, is also one of the British theaters finest 'lost plays.' Seeking to liberate Britten and Slater's work from the narrow traditions of theater and opera criticism, Sam Kinchin-Smith poses two questions:

If an opera was created like a play and can be staged as a play, is it a play?

If a portion of its success and influence is the product of this newly identified theatrical engine, is it then a great play?

The answers involve Wagner and W.G. Sebald, George Crabbe and Complicité, Akenfield and Twin Peaks.

Challenging long-established narratives of post-war theater history, this book makes a compelling case for why practitioners and scholars of performance ought to pay more attention to Britten and Slater's achievement—a milestone of unconventional English modernism—and perhaps to other operatic masterpieces too.

Weight: 92g
Dimension: 173 x 136 x 6 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781138678668