Benjamin Britten wrote three \u2018grand\u2019 operas and Gloriana was the third. It\u2019s first performance at Covent Garden in 1953 \u2018was one of the great disasters of operatic history\u2019 in the words of the Earl of Harewood, who had commissioned it to celebrate the coronation of the young Queen Elizabeth. Britten chose as his subject the first Elizabeth and the ageing Queen\u2019s conflict between love for the Earl of Essex and her loyalty to the State. (Such conflict between heart and head is apparent in so much of Britten\u2019s music, with it\u2019s public face but often private emotion.)<\/p>\n
It was perhaps not an entirely tactful theme to honour the new young Queen. Moreover the audience assembled to hear it\u2019s first gala performance were the slightly great and the fairly good, not many of whom perhaps were natural musical enthusiasts. The reception was decidedly cool, though later more discriminating audiences and some critics had more positive responses. Harewood adds that if the audience applauded at all it was \u2018with their kid gloves on and the press, critics as well as journalists, gathered next day to castigate composer, performance and choice..\u2019 But for many years the opera was unperformed and under a cloud.<\/p>\n
Apart from a concert performance at the Royal festival Hall to mark Britten\u2019s 50th birthday in 1963 and three years later a production at Sadler\u2019s Wells, it was not until the early nineteen nineties that Opera North \u2013 based in Leeds – mounted a superb production by Phyllida Lloyd. It was revived twice and eventually transferred to Covent Garden for a brief and highly successful season.<\/p>\n
Josephine Barstow was the Queen and Thomas Randle Essex, with many of the regular soloists of the Company singing other roles. The Chorus and Orchestra of Opera North were conducted by its then permanent conductor, Paul Daniel. Barstow, though no longer in her best voice, gave an unsurpassable rendering of the main role with all of the passion and agony that the music demands. The production was recorded and I believe is still available.<\/p>\n
I was so impressed by the work itself and moved by this production, that I saw it three times, the last of which was partly filmed for TV. That version is now available on DVD and I recently bought it. Only a proportion of the whole opera, centering on the main theme of the Queen\u2019s divided loyalties, is included, and there is accompanying back-stage filming which I found unhelpful. However, the frisson of a stunning, one might say historic performance shines above the omissions and the distractions, and I shall play this many times.<\/p>\n
B.R.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Benjamin Britten wrote three \u2018grand\u2019 operas and Gloriana was the third. It\u2019s first performance at Covent Garden in 1953 \u2018was one of the great disasters of operatic history\u2019 in the words of the Earl of Harewood, who had commissioned it to celebrate the coronation of the young Queen Elizabeth. Britten chose as his subject the first Elizabeth and the ageing Queen\u2019s conflict between love for the Earl of Essex and her loyalty to the State. (Such conflict between heart and head is apparent in so much of Britten\u2019s music, with it\u2019s public face but often private emotion.) It was perhaps <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"yoast_head":"\n