Last night, Rob and I went to the Snape Maltings concert hall to hear a concert version of Benjamin Britten’s opera, Peter Grimes. The performance was absolutely fantastic. It was semi staged but the soloists were not in costume. They will be performing it in costume on the beach, one street away from where we are staying. We haven’t booked tickets to the beach performance, but will be able to hear it from our apartment. We are sitting here with the window open at the moment, and can hear them rehearsing! The concert hall had wonderful acoustics, so I think it would be hard to beat that, with an open air performance. You may remember that on our first day in Aldeburgh, we chatted with some Peter Grimes performers, who had lunch at the same café as us. We had assumed that they were choristers, but when the soloists walked on stage last night, there they were – and they sang brilliantly.
We met a couple from North Yorkshire last night, on the Aldeburgh Music Coach to the Snape Maltings concert hall (about a 15 minute trip), and we had interesting conversations about music and travel, and we had an interval drink with them.
Today we walked to the house where Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears lived from 1957 onwards (called the Red House). It has just had a major lot of conservation work done to it, and new facilities added (such as a library, refurbished music studio and a big exhibition hall and new archive building. It was great to see where Britten did a lot of his composing during those years. Rob was in Aldeburgh in 1981, and he tried to find this house, and never did (because the directions he was given were not quite specific enough), so he has waited nearly 32 years to see it! He said it was worth the wait.
I have tried uploading some photos but this internet dongle thingy is sooooo slow, it is painful. I just gave up. Internet reception here is not good. I will try again, if and when I can get a fast wifi connection.
