“The music world’s yearlong centennial celebration of Benjamin Britten reached its climax Friday night, on what would have been the composer’s 100th birthday,” writes Sarah Bryan Miller in Friday’s (11/22) St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri). “At Carnegie Hall, the center of American observances, the spotlight was on David Robertson and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, performing Britten’s masterpiece, ‘Peter Grimes’ [with soloists and the St. Louis Symphony Chorus].” The cast included Anthony Dean Griffey, Susanna Phillips, Alan Held, and Meredith Arwady. “It’s an especially tricky score to do in concert; there’s a lot of interaction in the opera between the soloists and chorus, but here the orchestra is on stage, putting a physical barrier between the two…. On Friday night, the onstage energy was palpable. The chorus engaged as instructed; the soloists and orchestra outdid themselves. When it was over, there was an explosive reaction from the audience and cries of ‘Bravo!’ … Said principal viola Beth Guterman Chu, … ‘I felt just how united 200 people working together onstage can be.’ ”
Posted November 25, 2013
