Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other vocal music, orchestral and chamber pieces. His best-known works include the opera Peter Grimes (1945), the War Requiem (1962) and the orchestral showpiece The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (1945).
Sir Peter Neville Luard Pears was an English tenor. His career was closely associated with the composer Benjamin Britten, his personal and professional partner for nearly forty years.
The Aldeburgh Festival of Music and the Arts is an English arts festival devoted mainly to classical music. It takes place each June in the town of Aldeburgh, Suffolk and is centred on Snape Maltings Concert Hall.
Billy Budd, Op. 50, is an opera by Benjamin Britten to a libretto by the novelist E. M. Forster and Eric Crozier, based on the short novel Billy Budd by Herman Melville. Originally in four acts, the opera received its premiere at the Royal Opera House (ROH), London, on 1 December 1951. Britten later revised the work into a two-act opera, with a prologue and an epilogue. The revised version received its first performance at the ROH, Covent Garden, London, on 9 January 1964.
The Rape of Lucretia is an opera in two acts by Benjamin Britten, written for Kathleen Ferrier, who performed the title role. Ronald Duncan based his English libretto on André Obey's play Le Viol de Lucrèce.
Benjamin Matthew Luxon was a British baritone.
The English Opera Group was a small company of British musicians formed in 1947 by the composer Benjamin Britten for the purpose of presenting his and other, primarily British, composers' operatic works. The group later expanded to present larger-scale works, and was renamed the English Music Theatre Company. The organisation produced its last opera and ceased to run in 1980.
Owen Brannigan OBE was an English bass, known in opera for buffo roles and in concert for a wide range of solo parts in music ranging from Henry Purcell to Michael Tippett. He is best remembered for his roles in Mozart and Britten operas and for his recordings of roles in Britten, Offenbach and Gilbert and Sullivan operas, as well as recordings of English folk songs.
Joan Cross CBE was an English soprano, closely associated with the operas of Benjamin Britten. She also sang in the Italian and German operatic repertoires. She later became a musical administrator, taking on the direction of the Sadler's Wells Opera Company.
Jennifer Brigit Vyvyan was a British classical soprano who had an active international career in operas, concerts, and recitals from 1948 up until her death in 1974. She possessed a beautifully clear, steady voice with considerable flexibility in florid music. She was praised for her subtle phrasing and her dramatic gifts enabled her to create vivid individual portrayals. Although she sang a broad repertoire, she is particularly remembered for her association with the works of Benjamin Britten; notably singing roles created for her in the world premieres of several of his operas with the English Opera Group.
Susan Gritton is an English operatic soprano. She was the 1994 winner of the Kathleen Ferrier Award and has sung leading roles in a wide-ranging repertoire from Handel and Mozart to Britten, Janáček and Strauss.
Eric Crozier OBE was a British theatrical director, opera librettist and producer, long associated with Benjamin Britten.
Norman Lumsden was an English opera singer and actor. He first came to prominence during the 1940s and 1950s in several operas by composer Benjamin Britten, often performing at Covent Garden and the Aldeburgh and Glyndebourne festivals. He later began a television acting career during the 1970s appearing mostly in small roles in TV dramas. He branched out into films during the 1980s, notably appearing in Clint Eastwood's 1990 film White Hunter, Black Heart. He is particularly remembered for his portrayal of J. R. Hartley in the 1983 Yellow Pages advert Fly Fishing by J. R. Hartley, in 2015 voted fifth most popular British TV advertisement.
Le Rosier de Madame Husson is a novella by Guy de Maupassant, published in 1887. The hero is a young virtuous boy, the equivalent of a Rose Queen.
Terence Weil was a British cellist, principal cellist of the English Chamber Orchestra, a founding member of the Melos Ensemble, a leading chamber musician and an influential teacher at the Royal Northern College of Music.
Nancy Evans OBE was an English mezzo-soprano who had a notable career as a concert and opera singer. She is particularly associated with Benjamin Britten who wrote his song cycle, A Charm of Lullabies, and the role of Nancy in his opera Albert Herring for her.
Peter Coleman-Wright is an Australian baritone from Geelong. He began his career at Glyndebourne Festival Opera, where he sang Guglielmo in Così fan tutte, winning the Touring Prize. Subsequently, he sang Sid in Albert Herring and Demetrius in A Midsummer Night's Dream and Pizzaro in Fidelio.
Albert Herring is a 1959 Australian television play based on Benjamin Britten's opera of the same name. It was broadcast live from Melbourne in 1959 but recorded on tape and repeated in 1960. Leading tenor Victor Franklin had appeared as King Kaspar in a televised production of Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors in 1957. Christopher Muir produced and Clive Douglas conducted the Victorian Symphony Orchestra.
Frederick Sharp was an English baritone. Trained as a singer at the Royal College of Music, he made his debut in 1946 at the Glyndebourne Festival Opera as Junius in Benjamin Britten's The Rape of Lucretia. In 1947 he created the role of Sid in the world premiere of Britten's Albert Herring. He went on to sing thirteen seasons with the Sadler's Wells Opera; portraying such roles as Germont in La traviata, Paolo in Simon Boccanegra, Scarpia in Tosca, and the title roles in Eugene Onegin, Don Giovanni and Rigoletto among others. His final appearance with Saddler's Wells was in 1960.
