Page 510 - Aldeburgh Festival 2022 FINAL COVERAGE BOOK

20 June 2022

FIRST NIGHT | CLASSICAL
BBC NOW/Brabbins review — a

bold and brilliant premiere played

with flair

Snape Maltings, Suffolk
Richard Morrison

Marta Fontanals-Simmons sings with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales at the Aldeburgh Festival
BRITTEN PEARS ARTS

★★★★☆

An intolerant society turning against an outsider who doesn’t fit in? At the Aldeburgh Festival,

founded by Benjamin Britten, that plot summary inevitably suggests Britten’s first operatic

masterpiece, Peter Grimes. So it was bold of the young composer Gavin Higgins to use the

same idea for a work commissioned by the festival and premiered there on Friday: The Faerie
Bride, a cantata for two voices and orchestra.