Margaret Williams directs this 2001 production of adaptation of Benjamin Britten's television opera based on a short story by Henry James. Performers featured include Gerald Finley, Peter Savidge and Josephine Barstow. The conductor is Kent Nagano. As pertinent now as then, OWEN WINGRAVE was...
Benjamin Britten’s opera Gloriana was written in 1953 for celebrations around the Coronation of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, to whom the opera is dedicated. It had its first performance at the Royal Opera House on 8 June 1953, in the presence of The Queen then just 6 days into her reign. The...
This TV production is from 1970 and the color picture is accordingly rich and beautiful. The sound however is below average for the era, but still ... twiddle the knobs, turn the bass up a little, and get acclimated. This is a fully traditional production, actually very pleasing in that regard.
This expository film shows the mood of European society on the eve of the Second World War while promoting the values of international cooperation. Using the Swiss office of the BBC as an example, the film describes the functioning of radio and presents the possibilities opened by mass...
Louisa Muller makes her Garsington directing debut and we welcome back Richard Farnes (Falstaff, 2018) to conduct with Sophie Bevan (Don Giovanni, 2012) as the Governess and British tenor Ed Lyon making his Garsington debut as Quint. A young governess is sent to a remote country house to care for...
Benjamin Britten's monumental anti-war oratorio from the Vladislav Hall of Prague Castle in memory of war veterans and victims. British composer Benjamin Britten wrote War Requiem in 1962 on the occasion of the restoration of the war-damaged cathedral in Coventry. He used the traditional, codified...
With the Russian soprano Irina Lungu, the British tenor Allan Clayton and the German baritone Matthias Goerne, a star cast has been found that ties in with the history of the work in a special way: Benjamin Britten composed his War Requiem as a work of mourning and remembrance of the war dead and...
The production of King George V's Silver Jubilee (1910-1935) special postage stamp, and a brief dramatised history of the development of the penny post.
First transmitted in 1964, Benjamin Britten's War Requiem is performed at the Royal Albert Hall. The Melos Ensemble is conducted by Benjamin Britten, and the performers include Heather Harper (soprano), Peter Pears (tenor), Thomas Hemsley (baritone) and Simon Preston (organ and chamber organ). Also...
Peter Grimes lives from fishing. Raw and recluse, he finds himself at odds with the local community who accuse him of brutality towards his young apprentices and blames him for the death of one of them. A few friends stand up for him - Ellen Orford, a widow whom he wants to marry, Balstrode a...
In a remote country house, the newly-appointed governess arrives to take charge of the orphaned Flora and Miles. She must fight to protect them from strange and menacing spirits. But are these apparitions real, or the product of her troubled imagination? And what terrible evil occurred before her...
