Montagu Slater new. Slater's original libretto, which he published himself (to the annoyance of Britten and Peter Pears, who had made a number of amendments to it before the opera was staged), is cast in three acts. It omits the repetitions necessary in the actual opera. Anthony Burgess, writing in The Listener (magazine) in 1964, stated: “The excellence of Peter Grimes has a great deal to do with Montagu Slater's libretto, the only libretto I know that can be read in its own right as a dramatic poem.” He also wrote the libretti for `Yerma’, composed by Denis Aplvor. Slater was involved,
Peter Grimes in June 1945 the opera was hailed by public and critics; its box-office takings matched or exceeded those for "La bohème" and "Madame Butterfly", which were being staged concurrently by the company. Its American premiere was given in 1946 at Tanglewood by Koussevitzky's pupil, Leonard Bernstein. "Peter Grimes" has been produced many times at the Royal Opera House. The first was in 1947, conducted by Karl Rankl and with Peter Pears, Joan Cross and Edith Coates reprising their roles from the Sadler's Wells premiere. The most recent was in 2011 with Andrew Davis conducting, and starring Ben Heppner, Amanda Roocroft