Humphrey Carpenter introduces a performance of Britten's first and best-known serious opera, which was first staged 50 years ago today when it launched the new Sadler's Wells Opera after the Second World War.
Elijah Moshinsky 's powerful production, revived by the Royal Opera House to mark this occasion, vividly captures the dramatic tension between the tormented fisherman and the Suffolk village folk whose double standards drive Grimes to his fate.
Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera House,

Covent Garden
Conductor Arturo Tamayo
Act 1
8.00 Aspects of Britten Into the Hut with Peter
Grimes
In the third of four programmes, Jeremy J Beadle is joined by a forensic psychiatrist as he profiles the tortured mind of Peter Grimes.
8.15 Act 2
9.05 Aspects of Britten The Private and Public
Worlds of Benjamin Britten In the last of four programmes, Jeremy J Beadle looks at Britten himself: his passions, his foibles and, not least, his sense of community.
9.20 Act 3