Table of Contents

List of illustrations Benjamin Britten's Librettos by Peter Porter George Crabbe: The Poet and the Man by E.M. Forster 'Peter Grimes': A Musical Commentary by Stephen Walsh Thematic Guide 'Peter Grimes' An Opera in Three Acts and a Prologue by Montagu Slater Prologue Act One Act Two Act Three 'Peter Grimes' and 'Gloriana' by Joan Cross, Peter Pears and John Evans Some Reflections on the Operas of Benjamin Britten by Buxton Orr 'A daring experiment' by Michael Holroyd The Librettist of 'Gloriana' by Rupert Hart-Davis The Music of 'Gloriana' by Christopher Palmer Notes on the Libretto of 'Gloriana' by William Plomer Gloriana: An Opera in Three Acts by William Plomer Act One Act Two Act Three Discography by Martin Hoyle Bibliography Contributors

About the Author

Benjamin Britten (1913–76) was an English composer, conductor and pianist. He showed prodigious talent from an early age and first came to public attention with the a-cappella choral work A Boy Was Born. He leapt to international fame with his opera Peter Grimes in 1945. This was followed by eight other major operas, including Billy Budd (1951), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1960) and Death in Venice (1973), as well as other orchestral, choral and chamber works, which established his reputation as one of the greatest composers of the twentieth century.

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