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Investigates cinematic qualities in opera and reveals why Benjamin Britten's operas lend themselves to TV and film interpretations. Benjamin Britten's 1954 opera The Turn of the Screw, based on Henry James's ghost story, has been described by many critics and commentators as cinematic. Along with Peter Grimes, The Turn of the Screw is one of the most frequently televised or filmed of Britten's operas. Some of these productions have used location footage and/or studio work, and others are based on theatrical settings. This book explores the notion of cinematic opera in the context of The Turn of the Screw and filmed opera in general, and questions what inherent cinematic qualities exist in the work which make it particularly conducive for screen interpretation, an aspect of Britten's compositional style which has rarely been examined in detail before. Contrary to the prevailing narrative around Britten's disdain for cinema and television, the composer engaged with film as both a cinemagoer and film music composer early in his career and these experiences informed his compositional and dramatic choices. Archival research reveals clues to the composer's adaptation process. By tracing the progress from Henry James's original novella to operatic stage and screen production, via the development of Myfanwy Piper's libretto and Britten's score, the journey of adaptation is discussed in detail. A key part of the book looks at the subsequent interpretation of the opera on screen. Case studies evaluate eight directors' interpretations of the opera ranging from 1959 up to the 2020s. Included is a special study of Peter Morley's 1959 ITV version, which had previously been thought lost. This reveals the roots of Britten's subsequent engagement with screen media, culminating in his television opera Owen Wingrave. The book also briefly explores the influence of cinema on stage productions of the opera which have not been filmed.
Britten's Children confronts the edgy subject of the composer's obsessional yet strangely innocent relationships with adolescent boys. One of the hallmarks of Benjamin Britten's music is his use of boys' voices, and John Bridcut uses this to create a fresh prism through which to view the composer's life. Interweaving discussion of the music he wrote for and about children with interviews with the boys whom Britten befriended, Bridcut explores the influence of these unique friendships - notably with the late David Hemmings - and how they helped Britten maintain links with his own happy childhood. In a remarkable part of the book Bridcut tells for the first time the full story of Britten's love affair in the 1930s with the 18-year-old German Wulff Scherchen, son of the conductor Hermann Scherchen. As Paul Hoggart of The Times commented, 'this type of love belonged to an emotional landscape that has vanished for ever, and we are the poorer for it'. Since making the film, the author has extended his research to include friendships Britten had with children which have not previously been documented.The documentary Britten's Children won the Royal Philharmonic Society's 2005 Award for Creative Communication: 'this serious and beautiful film explored one aspect of a composer's life in great depth. Avoiding the temptation of sensationalism, Britten's Children was imaginatively researched and both touching and revelatory'.
An essay collection which examines Britten's juvenilia, influences such as Shostakovich and Verdi, his opera Owen Wingrave and a libretto written by Australian novelist Patrick White with the hope of a future collaboration.
One of the most famous literary works of the 20th century, the novella “Death in Venice” embodies themes that preoccupied Thomas Mann (1875–1955) in much of his work; the duality of art and life, the presence of death and disintegration in the midst of existence, the connection between love and suffering, and the conflict between the artist and his inner self. Mann’s handling of these concerns in this story of a middle-aged German writer, torn by his passion for a Polish youth met on holiday in Venice, resulted in a work of great psychological intensity and tragic power.
What if I said I am not what you think you see? A southpaw boxer is on the verge of their pro debut when their wife signs the adoption papers for a Korean boy. The boy's original adoptive father was all set to hand him over to a new home... until he realizes the boy would have no “dad.” Caught in the middle, the child launches himself in a lone wolf's journey of finding a pack he can call his own. Wolf Play is a mischievous and affecting new play about the families we choose and unchoose. It is published in Methuen Drama's Lost Plays series, celebrating new plays that had productions postponed due to the Covid-19 outbreak and the global shutdown of theatre spaces.
Benjamin Britten was a most reluctant public speaker. Yet his contributions were without doubt a major factor in the transformation during his lifetime of the structure of the art-music industry. This book, by bringing together all his published articles, unpublished speeches, drafts, and transcriptions of numerous radio interviews, explores the paradox of a reluctant yet influential cultural commentator, artist, and humanist. Whether talking about his own music, about the role of the artist in society, about music criticism, or wading into a debate on Soviet ideology at the height of the cold war, Britten always gave a performance which reinforced the notion of a private man who nonetheless saw the importance of public disclosure.
A thematically organised overview of the musical, social and cultural contexts for the multi-faceted career of this pivotal British composer.
This thematic examination of Britten's operas focuses on the way that ideology is presented on stage. To watch or listen is to engage with a vivid artistic testament to the ideological world of mid-twentieth-century Britain. But it is more than that, too, because in many ways Britten's operas continue to proffer a diagnosis of certain unresolved problems in our own time. Only rarely, as in Peter Grimes, which shows the violence inherent in all forms of social and psychological identification, does Britten unmistakably call into question fundamental precepts of his contemporary ideology. This has not, however, prevented some writers from romanticizing Britten as a quiet revolutionary. This book argues, in contrast, that his operas, and some interpretations of them, have obscured a greater social and philosophical complicity that it is timely - if at the same time uncomfortable - for his early twenty-first-century audiences to address.