Britten Peter Grimes
Glyndebourne Festival Opera 2000, London Philharmonic Orchestra
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“This is the greatest conducting and playing – LPO on top form – of Britten’s first operatic masterpiece I’ve ever heard, by quite some way. It’s agile, fleet and sharp in the choral ensembles – no doubt helped by a relatively slimline ensemble of top young voices – and searingly weighty in the interludes: the crucial central Passacaglia catches fire and blazes… this is an ideal presentation of a masterpiece at its unrelenting best”
David Nice, BBC Music Magazine, December 2010
“Glyndebourne’s Peter Grimes has much to commend it, not least Mark Wigglesworth’s vividly theatrical conducting.”
Andrew Clark, Financial Times, November 2010
“Mark Wigglesworth’s conducting, wonderfully detailed and perfectly paced, is certainly worth hearing.”
Andrew Clements, The Guardian, September 2010
“Mark Wigglesworth’s conducting has remarkable moments: the various threads and textures in the scene at the Boar are clearer and easier to follow than I’ve ever heard; the slashing of the strings goes straight to the heart in the recitative moments before “We shall be there with him”. There’s a jollity to the early moments of Act 3 and a mania to the build-ups to the grand hunt-for-Grimes scenes that really catch fire – and the conductor pays attention to Britten’s bass lines, always an undercurrent of evil…The penultimate scene of the opera is as frightening as it should be.”
International Record Review, November 2010
“Ultimately the real excitement here comes from Mark Wigglesworth’s evocative and tumultuous reading of the score, vividly realised by the LPO.”
Sarah Noble, Limelight Magazine, June 21st 2011
“Mark Wigglesworth’s conducting is expansive and wonderfully detailed, with searing results in the Passacaglia.”
John Allison, The Times; 26th June, 2000
“Mark Wigglesworth conducting the LPO, matches [Trevor] Nunn’s vision turn for turn, swinging between pungent clarity and heart-stopping textural beauty to give the performance of a lifetime.”
Tim Ashley, The Guardian, June 2000
“The performance is memorable for the superlative playing of the London Philharmonic under Mark Wigglesworth…”
Sunday Telegraph, July 2000
“The LPO under Mark Wigglesworth were on top form, superbly delivering the nuances of Britten’s famous instrumental virtuosity in the interludes…”
Opera Magazine, September 2000
