Grimes

JNG: OK Gerry can we start today talking to each other about Peter Grimes

GF: OK, very good

Peter Grimes at ENO, 9-30 May 2009

JNG: Is it a different production, very different from anything you've seen before?

GF: Yes, yes it is.

JNG: in what way?

GF: Very much… the characters are not part of a… they're seen – I don’t think I'd be giving away too much in saying that the fundamental of the production is that the characters are being seen through the eyes of Peter Grimes.

JNG: Right

GF: So the tormenting nature of his existence, the tormenting nature of existence is a result of what he's perceiving.

JNG: OK, so he's seeing them getting at him

GF: Exactly. And therefore actually they're more caricatured in this production. It's updated to 1945.

JNG: So how does he see Ellen then?

GF: Oh well as a very… as someone that he knows is trying to help him. There's already a relationship from the very beginning.

JNG: And how does that work with him rejecting her?

GF: Seen more or less in so far as he doesn't see his own faults. He's not aware of his own faults. And so that when she says "we've failed" there's a violent turn in him. But in fact there are many instances of him changing on the spot. Of being very violent and very calm.

JNG: I guess he's very much an outsider.

GF: Oh very much. I think in many ways that that's probably fundamental to the way Britten wanted to portray it.

JNG: I was thinking of the Pleiades song where everybody else is singing something else and he's on his own.

GF: Oh completely, in the way this is staged there's a complete separation in the staging and that's a good way to portray it. The antics of the village, of the Borough at the end of the opera will be very interesting to see how they're received by the public [laughter]. But it's a brief scene and it's only enough to have a taste of the Borough life might have been like in 1945. We'll see. It's very lovely, the orchestra is just fantastic. Gardner and the music staff have made us very aware of all out musical responsibilities

JW: Yes we're looking forward to being here, we're both coming to see it of course

GF: Well I think that the music is triumphant and such a greatly wrought piece. I love the way it allows… I mean Britten's first real venture into opera I guess. David Alden as producer [below right] has suggested maybe it's part a musical and part theatre piece. So he's not so convinced that there's a grand opera there.

JNG: With a lot of Britten, I wouldn't exactly say I enjoy the piece but it's a wonderful thing to see on stage.

GF: Completely. I do find that with Death in Venice or Midsummer Night’s Dream [JNG: Billy Budd] ...Billy Budd of course...

In some ways I think Grimes is a little more... has crampons onto its origins, it’s locality, you know, it’s clearly in a Suffolk village, it’s clearly an English stereotype of lawyer, rector, constable, school mistress, and there was a thought at one point, David had suggested maybe he could transplant it into Belgium, but it wouldn’t have had the same... [JW: Why? Why?] ... It’ll become evident [laughter]. I’m trying to increase interest in the ticket sales so... [laughter] [JW: it’s so British] yeah, and one of the things David was talking about was the fact that at the time of writing Peter Grimes Britten was of course in America. And obviously had a great sense of where he was from, and living very far away, and as you say the Britishness of the piece is so... it both lauds and reveals elements of British class and society goings on that Britten felt sensitive to, and I think he’s exploited it very well. You can imagine how it must have felt to have revealed that all of a sudden and the next year do Albert Herring in almost this kind of grotesquely clownish sort of way. You know, almost the same story, funny in its way, as if to cover up what he had done. And there’s a lot of that... and of course Britten’s own life has been subject to much scrutiny. And again he probably felt that during his own life, and was protective but wanted to expose it as well, so there are lots of contrasting tensions which have...

JNG: Can you give us a sample of what could be going on...

GF: Oh absolutely, David Alden doesn’t shy away from anything, so... hold on to your hat [laughter][JW: Can’t wait] Good

Britten

JW: Do you have a particular connection with Britten’s works?

GF: I grew up with the church choir singing things like the Missa Brevis and Ceremony of Carols and A Boy is Born, those were the things I... Britten’s choral music - Rejoice in the Lamb where the treble sings about his cat Jeoffry...

For I will consider my cat Jeoffry.
For he is the servant of the living God.
Duly and daily serving him

... and that was my real... my first solo as a boy, yeah I found it, it’s elusive, it’s not easy in any way. And that’s why I think he’s had a... has been pervasive in my career, because I always wanted to come to and fro from the origins of choral, through the songs and opera too. And at the Royal College of Music, where I was a student, when the New Britten Theatre was made, and I have a great relationship with song presenters in Toronto called The Aldeburgh Connection [JW: Yes, of course], Stephen Ralls and Bruce Ubukata, and they have taken their experiences of working at the Britten-Pears School and taken it literally to Toronto and formed a song society, and they present wonderful song recitals for singers and I’ve been fortunate to work with them and present my own little song things with them, and discs as well. So Britten has... The first disc I ever made was songs of Britten folk songs, with Stephen Ralls in fact as my pianist, and we won a Canadian Juno award for that, so there we are

JW: I can’t think which one that...

GF: It’s called Songs of Travel

JW: Oh of course!

GF: So 10 years ago that was all happening.

JW: But that wasn’t your first disc...

GF: It was my first solo disc [JW: Solo disc, OK] yeah. That was when I thought trying to make a solo disc was probably the ultimate achievement, and I saw that as probably the pinnacle of my career [JW: Aaaah]... no I had very few doubts about what I was trying to do, and it was wonderful doing it, it was hard work but again it made me celebrate Britten, and as we speak the latest of my recording projects with Hyperion is a Britten disc, so we are just waiting for...

JW: So that’s the Blake

GF: That’s the Blake songs... some rarities of Britten, so er...

JNG: Can you tell us?

JW:  There’s Tit for Tat isn’t there?

GF: There’s Tit for Tat as well, yes, and things that again have kind of come out of the archive pretty much. Things like The Crocodile, things like – which is a good old thing to join the Green-eyed Dragon [JW: Ah ha][JNG: A whole menagerie] yes [laughs] my own little collection of silly encores. Greensleeves, a beautiful arrangement of the Appalachian Folk Carol which is only just voice with an interlude of piano. So some really, really lovely things, really lovely things. There’s some of his late, some Welsh songs as well... and Tom Bowling [JNG: I like Tom Bowling]... yeah well that’s in the can and we just have to wait until an appropriate marketing opportunity...

JW: OK... right...

JNG: Who’s the pianist?

GF: Julius again this is my continuing relationship with Hyperion to which they continue to be faithful. It’s really wonderful

Songs by Ravel

JW: So... carrying on that theme

GF: Mm

JW: Ravel. It’s just about to come out...

GF: Yes. It’s about to hit the shelves. Yeah, I’m very excited by it. It’s a project I had actually thought about a very long time ago. I was introduced to Ravel obviously through Don Quichotte à Dulcinée, the trio of songs which I think every baritone learns at college [JW: it’s wonderful] ...and it’s fun. I think the challenge for young baritones of course is to sound like a slightly mad old dishevelled knight, erm... and so I feel I’m approaching that sort of stage now so [laughter] it’s nice that I can justify putting a bit of character in them.

The Ravel CD cover is by Paul Serusier

But they’re wonderful, very enjoyable to sing, and of course all the arrangements called the Chant populaires which are the... Ravel entered a contest in Moscow, the exact year escapes me, the early decade of the 20th century, and came up with a Spanish, a French... a Scottish [JW: ah ha][JNG: Scottish...]... Scottish and a Hebrew folksong. So those are also on the disc, then following on from that you have the Chanson Grecque, and then there are some really powerful ones. Of course crowned overall by Histoires naturelles [JW: Yes, absolutely wonderful]... which again are very evocative, and I think are... I think they’re deceptive. They are often presented as caricatures in some ways, little kind of... almost grotesque in some way - the fisherman and the pintade at the end. But for I think for me I’ve tried to give them... well not giving a certain majesty to it, but I’ve tried to do it as if I was inhabiting the animals and seeing that their own existence is very vital and important to them, so I hope they’re less caricatured than I would have done with them some years ago... because I want to respect them in some ways. They’re wonderful, really wonderful. Again, really hard to sing but erm... we’ve done our best [laughs]

JW: On the train coming here I was reading the CD notes that Hyperion have put online [Oh yes, OK], and it made me laugh that Ravel had been likened by people to the cricket... busy... [yes]... and I thought “I wonder who Gerry would liken himself most to” [laugher]... a bit of a loaded question given that there’s a peacock and a swan...

GF: Out of those five – oh none of them [laughter]. No, no, I’d like a good nap as a lion I think [laughs]. No, I think there’s elements of us all in each of them [JW: yeah, probably] and I think that in many ways that’s... there’s a lot of reference to the chickens who just get on with their own business while all these other creatures are sort of fussing about... in fact in the peacock and in the pintade at the end the chickens are sort of seen not bothering with either of them or being disturbed by them. So I think we’re all probably chickens [JW: Good answer!][JNG: I think I could probably aspire to a chicken]

Photo source Training Reference http://www.trainingreference.co.uk/free_pictures/index.html

JW: Something else from the CD notes which rather tickled Petra... I can’t think which song it is but the music is very spare [GF: Right, yes] and Ravel said he could play it one handed while smoking a cigarette with the other hand [GF: Ooooh! Right]... and she is so hoping that Julius Drake will do something similar [GF: OK, right... yes] maybe one of your Doctor Atomic cigarettes...

GF: I wonder which song that refers to because the one that is very spare is something called Ronsard à son âme

JW: [looking at notes] that’s the one

GF: yes... in some ways we didn’t see it as a cabaret piece I have to say [laughter]... but I can see the ability for him to say “singer just get on with it” and er there’s enough in the left and right hands for them to be disinterested in the other [laughs]

Three Didos one Aeneas

JNG: Moving on to Dido and Aeneas [Oh yes, OK] we’ve been asked which of your two Dido and Aeneas recordings should someone buy? [laughter]

Recorded 1998                                           Recorded 2008

GF: The thing about the latest one is that the musicians of our generation have taken great pains to learn the style and inform themselves to how this music may or may not have been performed in its time... have, I think, risen to a courageous level, where they’ve taken extracts from other music which has been found or have freely composed or improvised sections in order to go along with the idea of a masque or the whole theatrical element of what Dido and Aeneas could have been. Erm, there’s no music director on the latest one so it was a very collaborative project. There were just the singers, the orchestra and the producer.

JNG: Do you feel that is the way it would have been, or do you think it would have been very strictly...

GF: erm... well, put it this way, my own research isn’t as in depth as the others, so I was very happy to partake in something which was new to me, in a new style like this, and to hear, if you like, the exuberance of their improvisation, of their cadenzas of how the piece can live in a much more florid way. I mean it’s as if the score of Dido and Aeneas is just a skeleton of what the piece really could be. And so it’s been left to instrumentalists and harpsichordists and lute players to really embellish and feel the full florid nature of what probably was being played at that time. We can’t know really. And there are lots of effects, stage effects which we can only... we can only be excited at.

Aeneas is really a good observer of what’s going on around him, doesn’t really have much to sing [laughter], is always commented on as being a very two-dimensional character. You know “he sings with spine” is near about the greatest compliment you can get in performing the piece. You’re set up as a character to be booed off the stage really, being seen as a glory-hunter rather than a...

JNG: You don’t have the best aria either

GF: Definitely not.

[Gerry can be seen in a double bill of Dido & Aeneas and Acis & Galetea, singing Aeneas and Polyphemus respectively, at the Musikverein, Vienna, October 2009]

You know, I think Lynne Dawson was a wonderful Dido. She has a very warm and lyrical voice, and gave a real sense of beauty and lyricism, I would say, to Dido. Sarah has a lot of... she is as a person and a performer someone who is incredibly focussed on what they do, and very determined. It was pretty much her project this last Dido, and huge kudos to her to have brought this all together, she practically funded it, and its results obviously are a tremendous accolade to her. And OK now you’ll think I’m probably going to say she doesn’t sing it very well, but in fact she sings it superbly and with great feeling, and she’s got that what I call a “Janet Baker weep” in her voice, it has that kind of tinge of melancholy all the time, just that ability to make you think this person is extremely unhappy, you know, throughout the piece. Like there’s doom around the corner… and then when it happens…

Sarah Connolly as Dido, ROH 2009

Below: Sarah Connolly as Guilio Cesare, Glyndebourne 2005

I have to say I’ve not listened to the former recording for a very long time so I’m kind of, I’m very biased in that this newer music is more in my head, this newer experience is more in my memory, but I do remember with Rene Jacobs there was lots of exuberance. Actually lots of wit I seems to remember that was the thing about that I guess. It was perhaps a little more naïve and whimsical, in a positive way. But this newest one is probably more florid…

So that’s really my suggestion. If you like florid exuberance, and sometimes slightly, and adventurous, then go for the latest one. For a reliable and dependable rendition with some very, very good singing, then Rene Jacobs is the way to go.

JNG: It’s interesting how different all the versions are. Janet and I were brought up with the Janet Baker one...

JW: I can’t expunge her I’m afraid…

GF: Well how can one? How can one…

JW: She was seminal in your career wasn’t she?

GF: Well yes, I mean she… in fact we were talking about this the other day. A young singer came to me and said “I’ve just been to an audition with the Munster Trust” and I said “Is Janet Baker still doing the auditions?” “Yes” I said “Oh that’s fantastic – I also received money from the Munster Trust and did an audition with Janet Baker” so…

I had met her the first time at King’s where she did a St Matthew Passion there in my second year at King’s College, and I for some reason was chosen to be the bass soloist in that. And er, it was amazingly… I was a trembling leaf, at the age of 21… and Ian Partridge was the Evangelist… Janet Baker was… God… [laughter] ... and Stephen Roberts was the Christus and Kathleen Livingston, Willy Kendall…

So yes, she was my… she was fundamental in my… and also my first Messiah recording was of her, and then when I came over it was Dido and all those things so…

The recording process

JW: I’m sure there are lots of variations of this but is it normally the case that you would be approached by a recording company and they dictate what will be recorded? How much freedom do you have? I mean do you and Julius Drake approach, say Hyperion, with a project?

GF: I think it’s a bit of both, I think it’s a bit of both. Particularly in the recital end of things, and you know quite frankly it is not an investment market for these companies, they don’t make money on us at all, but by the same token we don’t make much money either… erm… in the most positive way possible, in so far as it’s wonderful to have the facility to record at an extremely high level with wonderful people, knowing that you’re doing this for your … to refine your own artistry with those others who are equally committed to their own art, without necessarily getting a financial payback. And you know, we’re a very minor subset of the entire recording industry, and it’s fantastic to have the relationship and simply the exchange of faith that when you say you want to do a particular project there isn’t the “Oh no no no, that’s impossible” response, it’s “Well, that’s interesting, maybe we can see if we can work it in context of the series that we’re trying to promote”.

Obviously Hyperion’s greatest talent is to get the big composer-projects focussed, like the Schubert Lieder obviously that was a huge commitment to that project and Graham Johnson [JNG: and what a result] and of course the way to do it was to use singers who, you know, were very glad to record that music, wonderful music, but who were chosen on the basis of not having to do too much, the commitment would be quite limited, so that the music would get its best revelation rather than it becoming an artist led, as they say, an artist led project. Graham Johnson obviously was the fundamental behind that so a lot of that was about relationship with Graham so… and he was very kind and generous as soon as I was in the business… we met on a number of occasions to talk about the potential of that and obviously my moment in those Schubert discs was very gratifying.

And out of those and my work with Julius we were able to suggest to Simon Perry [director of Hyperion Records] that our contribution should be, you know to the Hyperion catalogue if you like, could be more related to my North American-ness. There was a gap with Charles Ives and Samuel barber and so it was very logical. And instinctive. And in many ways we cut our teeth on those projects… as a way of really discovering how well we worked together, with Mark Brown, who’s the producer of all the records, and Julian Millard the sound technician.

Gerry, Julian Millard, Julius and Mark Brown.

Photo courtesy of http://www.juliusdrake.com/

So we recorded all our albums in one space in North London with a very familiar operating system. And it works because we love doing it, and we feel very private and it feels very special.

JW: I think it shows – well certainly it does as you’ve had so many accolades

GF: Well… yeeah. For me it’s been a huge upward learning curve as I’ve had to really hear myself develop as a singer through the recordings and what works and what doesn’t work [JW: That’s interesting] and I’ve had to be braver in looking at the newer, or the more recent repertoire, and how I can still keep trying to refine and be better. The recording process now I know works in a very brief period of time, I have to provide myself with a number of weeks on either side to focus on that. And it is wonderful and I’m pleased to say that I’m usually pretty well prepared for it, Julius insists on that, which is great, because I know there are people who have turned up to recording sessions with, you know, reading the music off the page. It’s not for me, that, erm... as tempting as it may sound, you can’t get away with it, and actually it’s only through performing and knowing the music absolutely inside out that you really, I think, can get to the inside of the song.

So that’s why things like the Blake songs, the Ravel Histoires, I think having performed them already then coming back to them in the studio is really great, because you get to plunge right in there and think “this is what works in performance but here what are we really trying to achieve”. And the listener's ear… there’s lots of other distractions for a listener really, there’s the road that they’re driving down, or the kettle boiling… so there’s a way, we think we’ve found ways to kind of aurally make sure that their interest is always maintained

JNG: and when it does work you notice it as a listener [GF: Ah ha] as suddenly you have to stop whatever you’re doing because you can’t do that and listen at the same time

GF: Oh good, oh good. Well, I’m the same, I do sometimes pull over [laughs] and go “ it’s wonderful”, that’s right, that’s right, that can be an appropriate response