Word: britten
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When his first opera, Peter Grimes, got its U.S. premiere last year at the Berkshire Music Festival, Britain's bright young Benjamin Britten complained: "There is no use pretending it was a professional performance, but for students it was extremely good...
Grand opera, like port wine, is a commodity the English are in the habit of importing. No Englishman has ever written a successful opera, though young Benjamin Britten's may one day make the grade, (TIME, Aug. 19). Even good English opera singers are rare. London has long been without a topnotch opera company...
...fault that opera is a declining art (the last first-rate popular opera was written in 1910), but the Met so far has done nothing to encourage the most promising opera composer of the day, England's young Benjamin (Peter Grimes) Britten (TIME...
Song for God. When he was eight years old Benjamin Britten revealed his unorthodox musical behavior by writing an angry song to be sung by God. He wrote a U.S. operetta named Paul Bunyan which got no place. At Tanglewood he glumly watched rehearsals wearing a pearl-grey jacket, a yellow tie and strap sandals...
After the first two performances, Britten emplaned for England, where his new opera The Rape of Lucretia opened last month and got even better notices than Peter Grimes. For the U.S. premiere of Lucretia, Britten would like to "bring over the original British company." Actor-producer Eddie (The Glass Menagerie) Dowling hopes to produce Peter Grimes on Broadway since Manhattan's starchy Metropolitan Opera has shown no real interest so far. The Metropolitan stood on history. Up to the era of Benjamin Britten, at least, no English-speaking composer has ever written a first-class grand opera...