Word: brittens
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Rosenkavalier in 1911.* There have even been few good tries (Deems Taylor's Peter Ibbetson, two by Gian-Carlo Menotti). Last week U.S. critics got a first look and listen to a year-old English opera, Peter Grimes. They almost unanimously hailed frail, 32-year-old Benjamin Britten as the most promising operatic composer...
...Britten's Peter Grimes, first produced in London in June 1945, had already been sung in Swedish in Stockholm, in Flemish in Antwerp, in German in Basel and Zurich. Last week at Serge Koussevitzky's summer music colony at Tanglewood in the Berkshires, U.S. audiences heard three performances in English...
...student casts alternated on different evenings in singing Peter Grimes. Tenors Joseph Laderoute and William Home in the title role wrestled with the high notes which Britten had created for his good friend Tenor Peter Pears (pronounced Peers) whose coloratura-like soarings are a legend in England. The most unimpressed member of the Tanglewood audience was Composer Britten himself. Said he stiffly: "There's no use pretending it was professional. ... It was a very lively student performance...
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...