“Behold, the sea itself.
And on its limitless, heaving breast, the ships…”

So writes Walt Whitman in his poem “A Song for All Seas, All Ships,” from “Sea Drift,” one of the sections of “Leaves of Grass.” Contrast Whitman’s expansive outlook and largeness of spirit with the cruel insularity of Benjamin Britten’s “Peter Grimes,” and you have a sense of the emotional range of this morning’s playlist on WPRB, as we present five hours of music related to the sea.

“Peter Grimes,” this year’s opera offering from The Princeton Festival, opens Saturday night at 8:00 at McCarter Theatre Center, for a run of three performances. We’ll be joined on-air at 10 a.m. today by stage director Steven LaCosse, who will tell us a little bit about the production, which is being built from the ground up and will be wholly unique to the Princeton Festival. We’ll also listen to some excerpts from the opera.

The rest of the morning will capture the many moods of the sea, with evocative music inspired by “Moby Dick,” the poetry of Whitman, the sea god Neptune, RMS Titanic, mermaids, pirates and sea shanties.

What shall we do with the drunken sailor? Listen in from 6 to 11 EDT on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. We’re always full of creative solutions, on Classic Ross Amico.