Troilus and Cressida (opera) Troilus and Cressida (opera) Troilus and Cressida is the first of the two operas by William Walton, and debuted in 1954. The libretto was by Christopher Hassall, his own first opera libretto, based on Geoffrey Chaucer's poem "Troilus and Criseyde". Walton dedicated the score to his wife, Susana. The genesis of the opera dated back to the mid-1940s, after the success of Benjamin Britten's first great operatic success, "Peter Grimes". Walton intended to counter this work with an opera of his own, and Alice Wimbourne, Walton's companion at the time, suggested the story of Troilus and Cressida as a subject.
Peter Grimes and Jonathan Summers. In 1967, the Metropolitan Opera mounted a "landmark" production directed by Tyrone Guthrie and starring Jon Vickers in the role of Grimes. In the summer of 2013, the Aldeburgh Festival staged a performance of "Peter Grimes" in its natural setting on the beach at Aldeburgh with tenor Alan Oke in the title role. A Suffolk coastal village, mid-19th century (The date is not specified, but the foghorn in Act III places it later than the date of Crabbe's poem) Peter Grimes is questioned at an inquest over the death at sea of his apprentice. The townsfolk, all