Performing Britten
BBC Radio 3
Sundays, 18/02/07 – 22/04/07, 3pm - 4pm
Presented by Dr. John Evans

Benjamin Britten was one of the outstanding opera composers of the 20th century. 30 years after his death, his operas are still performed regularly around the world. This performing tradition has continued unbroken, despite the powerful and individual stamp Britten himself and his lifelong partner, the tenor Peter Pears, applied to the works through their own performances and recordings.

In this 10-part series, the Britten expert Dr John Evans talks to singers, conductors and directors about a work with which they have a particularly close association. They listen to and comment on excerpts from recordings of the work, and discuss the challenges and pleasures of preparing and performing these remarkable works.

 The series is broadcast in the order of composition of the operas.

18th Feb - Francesca Zambello on `Paul Bunyan’
In the first programme of the series John Evans talks with with the American director Francesca Zambello about Britten’s first attempt at writing for the stage, the operetta `Paul Bunyan’, which he wrote in collaboration with W.H. Auden when he and Pears were in the USA in the early 1940s.

It was first performed in New York in 1941, then withdrawn by the composer and only performed for the first time in the UK at Aldeburgh shortly before his death in 1976.  Francesca Zambello recently directed its first major revival with the company of the Royal Opera House.

25th Feb - Philip Langridge on `Peter Grimes’ 
Philip Langridge is the singer who perhaps more than any other has taken on the role of the tormented Suffolk fisherman written for, created by, and indelibly associated with, Peter Pears.

4th March - Dame Janet Baker on `The Rape of Lucretia’
Dame Janet recorded the role of the doomed Roman heroine, who values her virtue more than her life, with Britten.

11th March - Richard Hickox on `Albert Herring’
John Evans talks to the conductor Richard Hickox about  Britten’s fourth opera,`Albert Herring’. Richard Hickox has conducted most of Britten’s operas in the theatre, and has recently made a much-praised recording with the City of London Sinfonia of Britten’s only comic opera.Based on a short story by Guy de Maupassant, with the action translated to a small Suffolk market town in 1900, the opera was first performed at Glyndebourne in 1947, and a year later became the first operatic production at the newly-established Aldeburgh Festival.

The story is set in `Loxford’, a thinly-disguised version of Aldeburgh. The worthies of the village meet to select a May Queen, but none of the village girls is felt to be virtuous enough. Instead, they decide to have a `May King’, and the name put forward is Albert Herring, a local lad who works in his mother’s greengrocer’s shop. At the ceremony to crown Albert, his lemonade gets spiked with rum, and he goes on the rampage. The villagers raise the alarm when Albert’s orange-blossom wreath is brought back, having been crushed by a cart, and they fear he is dead. But he reappears, in one piece but definitely the worse for wear, having finally broken free of his mother’s apron-strings.

18th March - Simon Keenlyside on `Billy Budd’
John Evans’ guest today is the acclaimed baritone Simon Keenlyside, one of the finest contemporary interpreters of the role. Simon Keenlyside first played Budd professionally at Scottish Opera in 1992, and has since appeared in the role at Covent Garden, the Vienna Staatsoper, and most recently at English National Opera in 2005. This last portrayal won universal acclaim, and was described by one critic as `the most complete physical, psychological and vocal performance of Budd that I have ever seen’. The recording discussed in `Performing Britten’ is the one made by Richard Hickox, with Simon Keenlyside as Budd opposite John Tomlinson as the evil Claggart and Philip Langridge as Captain Vere.

Based on a story by Herman Melville, with a libretto by Eric Crozier and E.M. Forster, `Billy Budd’ was first performed at Covent Garden in December 1951, and now occupies a regular place in the international repertoire, despite its all-male cast. The title-role of Billy Budd, a young sailor press-ganged into the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, who attracts the malign attentions of an evil quartermaster, accidentally kills him when falsely accused of mutiny, and is hanged to the great sorrow of the captain and crew, was created by Theodor Uppman, and taken up in the 1970s and 80s by Sir Thomas Allen.

25th March - Dame Josephine Barstow on `Gloriana’
Dame Josephine Barstow has performed and recorded the title-role of Elizabeth I in this relatively little-known opera, written to celebrate the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953.

1st April - Basil Coleman on `The Turn of the Screw’
Basil Coleman directed the world premiere of Britten’s haunting take on Henry James’s famous ghost story at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice in September 1954.

8th April - Sir Peter Hall on `A Midsummer Night’s Dream’
Sir Peter Hall is ideally placed to discuss Britten’s magical interpretation of Shakespeare, having directed both the play and the opera.

15th April - Steuart Bedford on `Owen Wingrave’
Conductor Steuart Bedford, one of Britten’s most steadfast champions,  is one of the recent interpreters on disc of this opera, which was originally commissioned by BBC TV, but has since been successfully adapted for the stage.

22nd April - John Shirley-Quirk on `Death in Venice’
Britten’s last opera, based on  Thomas Mann’s novella, was first performed at  Snape Maltings and Covent Garden in 1973.  Baritone John Shirley-Quirk created the multiple roles of Aschenbach’s alter ego at those performances, and subsequently recorded the work with Britten.