Benjamin Britten: The Outsider and Lost InnocenceElden Dale Golden, [email protected]
Seeks to “identify the creative links between [Britten’s] music and biographical or psychological factors, in order to uncover the personal narrative encoded within the operatic narrative, and to demonstrate that, for Britten, opera was the natural medium through which to explore and express his private concerns” (1).
Seymour, Claire. The Operas of Benjamin Britten: Expression and Evasion Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 2004. Print.
Two Themes in Britten’s Life and in His Operas:
* The Outsider who, voluntarily or involuntarily, stands on the fringes of society.
* The Person who experiences or represents a loss of innocence.
Benjamin Britten, the youngest of four children, and at the piano as a young boy
Benjamin Britten as a school boy
Britten at work
Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears in 1940 and 1975
The Queen at Snape Maltings Concert Hall in 1967 and 1970
Paul Bunyan, 1941
Operetta
Libretto by W.H. Auden
Premiered at Columbia University, New York City
Peter Grimes Grand Opera
libretto by Montagu Slater based on George Crabbe’s poem The Borough (1810)
premiered at Covent Garden, London, 1945
Aldeburgh Festival, outdoor performance
The Rape of Lucretia Chamber Opera
Libretto by Ronald Duncan
Premiered at Glyndebourne, 1946
Eastman School of Music, Rochester, NY
Albert Herring Comic Chamber Opera
Libretto by Eric Crozer after a short story by Guy de Maupassant
Premiered at Glyndebourne, 1947
Los Angeles Opera
The Little Sweep
Children’s Opera
Libretto by Eric Crozier
Premiered at Aldeburgh Festival, 1949
Billy Budd Grand Opera
Libretto by E.M.Forster and Eric Crozier after novella Billy Budd, Foretopman by Herman Melville (1891)
Premiered at Covent Garden, London, 1951
Metropolitan Opera, NY
Gloriana Grand Opera
Libretto by William Plomer after Lytton Strachey’s Elizabeth and Essex (1928)
Premiered at Covent Garden, London, 1953
Written in celebration of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II
Opera Theater of St. Louis
The Turn of the Screw Chamber Opera
Libretto by Myfanwy Piper after the short story by Henry James (1898)
Premiered at La Fenice, Venice, 1954
Israeli Opera, Tel Aviv
Noye’s Fludde Church Opera
Libretto from the Medieval Mystery Play of the same name.
Premiered at Orford Church, Suffolk, 1958
Moonrise Kingdom (movie), Wes Anderson, director
A Midsummer Night’s Dream Grand Opera
Libretto by Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears based on the play by Wm. Shakespeare
Premiered at Aldeburgh Festival, 1960
Chicago Lyric Opera
Curlew River
Church Parable
Libretto by William Plomer after the medieval Japanese Noh play Sumidagawa by Juro Motomasa (1395-1431)
Premiered at Orford Church, Suffolk, 1964
Royal Academy Opera
The Burning Fiery Furnace
Church Parable
Libretto by William Plomer based on the Book of Daniel, Chapter 3
Premiered at Orford Church, Suffolk, 1966
The Prodigal Son
Church Parable
Libretto by William Plomer based on the New Testament Parable, Luke 15:11-32
Premiered at Orford Church, Suffolk, 1968
Aldeburgh Festival
Owen Wingrave
Television Opera
Libretto by Myfanwy Piper after the short story by Henry James (1892)
Premiered on BBC2 Television, 1971
Opera Trionfo
Death in Venice
Grand Opera
Libretto by Myfanwy Piper after Thomas Mann’s novella
Premiered at Snape Maltings, Aldeburgh Festival, 1973
English National Opera
Grand Opera:
Peter Grimes (1945)
Billy Budd (1951)
Gloriana (1953)
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1960)
Death in Venice (1973)
Chamber Opera:
The Rape of Lucretia (1946)
Albert Herring (1947)
The Turn of the Screw (1954)
Operetta:
Paul Bunyan (1941)
Church Opera:
Noye’s Fludde (1958)
Church Parables
Curlew River (1964)
The Burning Fiery Furnace (1966)
The Prodigal Son (1968)
Children’s Opera
The Little Sweep (1949)
Television Opera
Owen Wingrave (1971)
George Crabbe (1754-1832) and The Borough (1810)
Aldeburgh coastline, Suffolk, UK
Aldeburgh, Suffolk, UK
The Apprentice and Innocence Lost
Peter Grimes (Peter Pears) and the
apprentice (Leonard Thompson) in the
1945 Sadler’s Wells production of Peter
Grimes.
Child labor and workhouse children
Peter Grimes Act II, Scene 1 – “Grimes is at his exercise”
Peter Grimes as the Outsider
Peter Grimes (Peter Pears) and the
apprentice (Leonard Thompson) in the
1945 Sadler’s Wells production of
Peter Grimes.
Benjamin Britten …
“A central feeling for us [in Peter Grimes] was that of the individual against the crowd; with ironic overtones of our own situation. As conscientious objectors we were out of it … this feeling led us to make Grimes a character of vision and conflict, the tortured idealist he is, rather than the villain he is in Crabbe” (74).
Seymour, Claire. The Operas of Benjamin Britten: Expression and Evasion. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 2004. Print.
Text for chorus at end of Act III:1
Who holds himself apartLets his pride rise. Him who despises us We’ll destroy. And cruelty becomes His enterprise. Him who despises us We’ll destroy.Our curse shall fall upon his evil day. We shall Tame his arrogance. We’ll make the murderer pay for his crime. Peter Grimes! Grimes!
Peter Grimes, Act III, Scene 1 Royal Opera, Covent Garden
Britten and Pears in
Venice in the 1950s
Peter Pears …
“For Ben, [Death in Venice] was, in some way, a summing up of what he felt, inspired even by the memories of his own idyllic childhood … At the end Aschenbach asks what it is he has spent his life searching for. Knowledge? A lost innocence? And must the pursuit of beauty, of love, lead only to chaos? All question Ben constantly asked himself” (101).
Kennedy, Michael. Benjamin Britten. London: Dent, 1981/1993. Print.
Thomas Mann in 1911,
aged 36, the year he
published Death in Venice.
Gustav von
Aschenbach
and Lost
Innocence
Apollo and Dionysus
rational emotionalknowledge intuitionlimits no limitsindividual groupmoderation excessclear borders no bordersdreams ecstasy self-control frenzytemperance intoxicationorder chaosnative foreignWest Eastmale female /androgynous
Tadzio
as the
Outsider
Britten, Pears, and the Prince and Princess of Hesse and the Rhine in Indonesia in 1956
Gamelan Instruments
Gamelan Orchestras
The Hotel des Bains, The Lido, with Venice in the background
Map of Venice and the Lido
Death in Venice, final scene, film, Tony Palmer dir., 1980
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