Comments on: Everyone Hates Peter Grimes

By: the dew

the dew — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 14:55:50 +0000

Dude. I was thinking during the rebroadcast of the simulcast (the aftercast, perhaps) about the creepy overweight dude, Joe, in the town I grew up in. I doubt that no one encouraged him to drive his Chevette into Rattlesnake Creek, but there wasn’t a lot of local love for the guy. Rumors constantly swirled about Joe–one’s I don’t care to restate. Maybe they were true, maybe they weren’t. But I couldn’t help but wonder if physical appearances make us (the chorus) more or less prone to be suspicious and slanderous.

By: countercritic

countercritic — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 19:20:18 +0000

Hey girl. You’re totally right. I didn’t want to go down on Griffey.

But I think casting Grimes with a hot actor IS the complication. You’re looking at my comment as if it’s purely superficial, as if I made a call for all opera singers to be hot sex machines. But, I’m pretty sure I articulated that I arrived at my conclusion through analyzing my experience with a specific performer who’s performance exposed a peculiar necessity the character Grimes has, which is to be appealing in a way that is erotic. Grimes needs to be erotic to be compelling in his dramatic situation, otherwise, he’s just despicable, as we are given no explanation for the origin of his violent behavior.

By: rhosa

rhosa — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 23:02:08 +0000

just saw the live simulcast. i think you’re deeply wrong about griffy’s “visual discrepancies.” sometimes choices are more complicated than whom the critic might want to “go down on.”

By: emadethis

emadethis — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 19:42:32 +0000

Let’s just hope that Griffey improves with the next couple shows. I myself am looking foward to the HD broadcast mainly because I DON’T live in New York and I have not seen Peter Grimes since I was in college. I agree that Peter Grimes as a character is a fishy, but the orchestral writing is amazing and above all, I’m looking foward to hearing it again.