Gloriana

English National Opera Guides are ideal companions to the opera. They provide stimulating introductory articles together with the complete text of each opera in English and the original where appropriate.

This is a double volume dedicated to two masterpieces by Benjamin Britten. While the 1945 première of ´Peter Grimes´ established Britten as a composer of international standing, ´Gloriana´, which was actually composed for an historic event (the coronation of Elizabeth II), has never enjoyed a comparable fame. The variety of mood, characterisation and pace, in each, illustrates Britten’s exceptional gift for theatre - a view borne out by the recollections of the artists who created the title roles, Peter Pears and Joan Cross.

Commentaries on the scores reveal, for instance, how much the popular concert extracts (the ‘Sea Interludes’ from Grimes and the ‘Choral Dances’ from Gloriana) gain from their context in the dramas. The libretti are particularly interesting: the essay by E.M. Forster - the inspiration for ´Grimes´ - is reprinted here, and Michael Holroyd discusses Lytton Strachey’s controversial ´Elizabeth and Essex´ - the source for ´Gloriana´. In sum, this is a celebration of two works by the greatest opera composer of the second half of the 20th century.