Any sub-standard works in Britten's operatic output?

[Guest]

I know there are some noted Britten enthusiasts among the forum contributors and I wanted some views on some recent thoughts I've had.

I have loved all Britten's operas since I discovered them 40 years ago. I always realised that they were not all on the same level as Grimes, Budd and Screw, but still thought they were all great works. I have a bit of a problem with Lucretia, which I have never really 'got', and I suppose I accept the traditional view that Gloriana is not among the best. (Though I do like Wingrave, which has also got a lot of flak!)

However I have recently been listening to A Midsummer Night's Dream for the first time for a number of years. I recall loving every moment in the theatre, but, on the composer's CD, though the Deller bits and the mechanicals' scenes are wonderful, I found the scenes involving the lovers tedious in the extreme. Is it just me - or did BB lack his usual degree of inspiration when writing this opera? Or perhaps WS himself managed to make the four lovers pretty dull!

[Ferretfancy]

I still enjoy the Britten recording of A Midsummer Night's Dream, the works I have trouble with are the Church Parables, and that's not because I'm an atheist. In these works, Britten seems to have deliberately set himself problems in order to demonstrate his skill in overcoming them, but in the process real inspiration has been lost. I feel that the best of the lyrically inspired Britten began to fade from the War Requiem onwards, although there are still many fine moments in his later works.

[VodkaDilc]

I know Curlew River is meant to be superior to the other two Church Parables, but that is the one I like least. Perhaps the opportunities for instrumental spectacle in the two OT stories appeal to my vulgar streak - or perhaps there's something about the Pears Madwoman character which I find hard to take seriously. Sadly I've never seen the Parables in live performance; are they done much these days?

[Chris Newman]

VodkaDilc,
I think you are close to the target when you say that WS managed to make the four lovers of A Midsummer's Night's Dream pretty dull. That rubs off by limiting BBs characterisation of the lovers in AMND. Having said that both WS and BB make fine dramas out of the stories. Owen Wingrave is limited by its televisual expectations causing problems for staging.

In my reckoning Peter Grimes, Billy Budd, Albert Herring, The Turn of the Screw and the Church Parables are BB's finest operatic material and examples of his true genius. Gloriana, A Midsummer's Night's Dream and Death in Venice come closely behind whilst Owen Wingrave, Rape of Lucretia, and the Children's works are structurally problematical. I do not like The Beggar's Opera dressed in Britten's clothes where I find the Gay/Peputch charm lost and Britten's version works even less well than rock versions I have seen. At the other end of the scale Paul Bunyan is more of a high class musical without the Broadway pazzazz.

[Mary Chambers]

Some quick thoughts -

I can only say which ones don't really work for me - Owen Wingrave and The Prodigal Son. I've never seen either of them live, but have seen the original Owen Wingrave on DVD and also the DVD with Gerald Finley. I prefer the original. Sometimes Britten's operas work much better in the theatre than you might expect from hearing a recording or reading a score. I think that's true of Gloriana, for instance.

I agree to some extent that the lovers in his MND are less interesting than the other characters, but then I always thought them fairly uninteresting in the play. Overall I love the opera, and think it has some of his most beautiful music.

I would tend to agree that works after War Requiem are rather less enthralling than those written when he was younger, if it weren't for the fact that he then wrote Death in Venice, which I find as good as any. The problems of Britten's increasing age and ill-health found their voice in that work.

[Mandryka]

Death In Venice is probably my favourite Britten opera (although sometimes it's Billy Budd - I think these are his two most representative works).

Personally, I don't like Albert Herring, because I don't think Britten had much sense of comedy, the success of Paul Bunyan notwithstanding.

[DublinJimbo]

Of the ones that I know, Paul Bunyan is the only one I find truly unworthy of Britten. Nothing about it appeals to me. Of those I'm unfamiliar with, Albert Herring is the one I'd most like to hear or see. Peter Grimes and The Turn of the Screw are the two I've experienced most in performance, and each experience reinforces my high opinion of them both.

As to the Church Parables, I went through a phase of listening to them over and over again, and was fortunate while over visiting an aunt in the UK to go to a performance of The Burning Fiery Furnace in St Paul's Cathedral (that would have been in the mid '70s, I'd say). Returning to them recently, I was disappointed, and found it hard to understand what had impressed me about them before. Mind you, reading this thread and writing these words has my hands twitching to take them down off the shelf for another try.

[Mary Chambers]

I wasn't counting Paul Bunyan as an opera. It has the exuberance of youth and some nice tunes, but that's about it. It's a sort of High School Musical with a largely pretentious libretto by Auden - an odd mixture! After all, Britten kept it quiet until he was persuaded (by Pears, I think?) to revive it, as a way of re-living his youth.

[Op. XXXIX]

Personally, I don't like Albert Herring, because I don't think Britten had much sense of comedy...

Rather nice to know I'm not the only one who feels that way.

[Mary Chambers]

Rather nice to know I'm not the only one who feels that way.

Well, I don't agree! I find Albert Herring and the Pyramus and Thisbe bit of MND very funny, though there's more to Albert Herring than humour.

[Chris Newman]

Well, I don't agree! I find Albert Herring and the Pyramus and Thisbe bit of MND very funny, though there's more to Albert Herring than humour.

Some of Gloriana is very funny. Perhaps more dramatically/visually than musically.....

[ardcarp]

Owen Wingrave is limited by its televisual expectations causing problems for staging.

I can remember being terribly disappointed by Owen Wingrave when it appeared on TV. Loving all the usual stuff (MSND, Grimes, The Rape, Parables etc, etc) I just couldn't warm to OW. It was as if BB had lost his touch and/or was furiously writing to a deadline. Maybe I haven't given the work a chance because I haven't had the heart to re-visit it after, what was for me, a bad experience all those years ago.

[Colonel Danby]

I saw the complete Church Parables in Symphony Hall Birmingham in the mid 90s, and they boasted that it was the first time that they had been performed as a set: perhaps somebody could clarify whether this is true or merely porky pies. The music was impressive, but I did find the whole thing a little hard to take in in one sitting.

Give me 'Grimes' and 'Budd' any day...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

"Sub-Standard"? Hmm; whose "standard"? It seems from the above comments that everybody has a different idea what the Britten "standard" is, and we're all just suggesting that the ones we don't like fall below that. Britten was a great composer - his standard is one that many other composers could only achieve in their dreams. The operas we don't like and the ones we adore just tell us something about our own standards - although it's interesting that everybody loves Peter! (Me, too!)

My own favourites? Grimes Rape (because of the MfP LP of extracts with Nancy Evans and Goodall bought for 5p off a market stall in 1975) Screw, Curlew, Death in Venice. There isn't one that I dislike all the way through, but I share the suspicion raised by others that comedy wasn't really his strong point.

Best Wishes.

[Mandryka]

I wasn't counting Paul Bunyan as an opera. It has the exuberance of youth and some nice tunes, but that's about it. It's a sort of High School Musical with a largely pretentious libretto by Auden - an odd mixture! After all, Britten kept it quiet until he was persuaded (by Pears, I think?) to revive it, as a way of re-living his youth.

PB was actually my introduction to Britten, via the superb ROH staging of the late 90s (the one that had its swansong at Sadlers' Wells): found it very affecting, as well as amusing and Richard Hickox's recording (taped at the performances I saw) is a thing of wonder.