Word: husson
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...story was familiar, at least in outline: Librettist Eric (Let's Make an Opera) Crozier had freely adapted his comic libretto from Guy de Maupassant's Le Rosier de Madame Husson. A bumpkin is chosen King of the May because in the village there is no girl virtuous enough to be Queen, eventually winds up on a roaring toot. To this, Composer Britten hitched a witty, somewhat Peter and the Wolf-ish score, in which each instrument seemed to portray (or mock) a character on stage. There were other Britten trademarks: well-fitting songs and exciting ensembles. Even...
...first try at satirical comedy; his first two operas, Peter Grimes and The Rape of Lucretia (TIME, June 9), were both dark and tragic. For the new opera, Albert Herring, Librettist Eric Crozier did a slapstick adaptation of Guy de Maupassant's cynical Le Rosier de Mme. Husson, in which an innocent village bumpkin goes off on a wild, sinful night after being chosen King of the May. Britten scored it for chamber orchestra in his familiar brittle, witty and forcefully dissonant style...