to my heart – the struggle of the individual against the masses. The more vicious the society, the more vicious the individual". In a 1963 analysis of the opera in Music & Letters, J. W. Garbutt contended that Britten's "inventive genius" and the richness of the score led the listener to suspend disbelief, but that nevertheless Slater had failed to reconcile the violent and the visionary in Grimes's character and conduct. In a retrospective consideration of the opera in 1972, Peter Garvie argued in Tempo that although it had seemed uniquely new when it first appeared, it was in fact "a great but final reincarnation of more or less traditional opera", and that it holds no promise of redemption for the characters, unlike Britten's later operas. In The University of Toronto Quarterly in 2005, Allan Hepburn considered the various views of previous commentators on the extent to which homosexuality is relevant to the plot of the opera. He notes that in Peter Conrad's analysis, "Grimes the boy-killer is the homosexual outcast, looking to Ellen Orford to effect his redemption, even his cure", and that for Philip Brett Britten's operas are "preoccupied with the social experience of homosexuality", but Hepburn concludes that Grimes can be seen in several different ways: In 2020 Rupert Christiansen wrote that Peter Grimes can be labelled a "folk" opera, to the extent that: Christiansen also remarks on "the sharp, Dickensian characterisations" of the various inhabitants of the Borough, showing the composer's exceptional gift for setting the English language to music. Recordings Notes, references and sources Notes References Sources Further reading External links Further Peter Grimes discography Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes (BBC synopsis) Hensher, Philip. 2009. "A Man for the People". The Guardian'' (8 May). 1945 operas English-language operas Music based on poems Music commissioned by Serge Koussevitzky or the Koussevitzky Music Foundation Operas based on literature Operas by Benjamin Britten Operas set in England Operas