Two Days at the Opera

I'm not a great lover of opera but yesterday and today I've been listening to Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes. I suppose there's an autodidactic edge to this. I feel guilty to some degree over my inability to discover what it is about this art form that some people, whose opinions I respect, love so much. In broad terms I enjoy listening to Britten's music but there's something about the fruity voices, the over-ripeness of opera in general, that shuts me out. I've owned the 2 CD set I have been listening to for some years (conducted by Sir Colin Davis, with Jon Vickers as Grimes) but I've rarely played it from beginning to end. And now I'm wondering why not. Because this is obviously good stuff: great tunes, great sounds, just a great noise.

Also, I suppose, a great story. This I'm tentative about though. I'm not sure I really get the point. Yes, the portrait of the fishing community is convincing enough for me to suspend my disbelief, and individuals within that community are superbly delineated. Yet the problem of Grimes himself remains, and Ellen in relation to him. What is the listener supposed to make of him? Sympathy is easy, and cheap somehow. But are we to understand him? I don't think I can, possibly because I can't grasp what his music has to tell me. Perhaps simply, Man invented morals, but tides have none?