A N INTRODUCTION

Patricia Howard
The Operas o f Benjam in Britten
A n Introduction
 Also by Patricia Howard
Gluck and the Birth of Modern Opera
PATRICIA HOWARD

T he Operas of

Benjamin
Britten
A n Introduction

B ARR I E AND R OC KL I F F
THE CRESSET PRESS
LONDON
 © 1969 ky Patricia Howard
First published 1969 by
Barrie and Rockliff The Cresset Press
2 Clement's Inn, London WC2
SBN 214 66055 9
Printed in Great Britain by
W & J Mackay & Co Ltd, Chatham
For Lucy and Polly
 Contents

page
Foreword ix
Chapter one Peter Grimes i
Chapter two The Rape of Lucretia 25
Chapter three Albert Herring 47
Chapterfour The Little Sweep 63
Chapterfive Billy Budd 73
Chapter six Gloriana IOI
Chapter seven The Turn of the Screw 125
Chapter eight Noye’s Fludde J49
Chapter nine A Midsummer Night’s Dream 159
Chapter ten Curlew River 179
Chapter eleven The Burning Fiery Furnace 199
Chapter twelve Britten and Opera 219
 Foreword

This book had its origin in some lectures given at the Dorking
Institute of Further Education. My aim has been to expand
these in two directions : to cover more operas and to reach a
wider audience. Because I am writing for potential opera
audiences rather than scholars I have not included a work
which they are unlikely to have the opportunity of seeing—
Paul Bunyan. I have also omitted Britten’s edition of The
Beggar's Opera, because I am concerned here only with
composer/librettist operations, not with the different prob­
lems of arrangements and editions.
 Acknowledgements

I would like to thank those who generously gave their

permission to quote from works whose rights they control.
These include :
Boosey and Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd. and Boosey and
Hawkes Inc., for permission to quote from the scores of Peter
Grimes (copyright 1945), The Rape of Lucretia (1946, 1947,
1949), Albert Herring (1948), Little Sweep (1949), Billy Budd
(1951), Gloriano (1953), The Tarn of the Screw (1955), Noye's
Fludde (text from English Miracle Plays, Moralities and Inter­
ludes, edited by Alfred W. Pollard, by agreement with
Clarendon Press, Oxford; copyright 1958), and A Midsummer
Night's Dream\ Faber Music Ltd., for the quotations from
Curlew River and The Burning Fiery Furnace; and Mrs A. S.
Strachey and Chatto and Windus for leave to quote from
Elizabeth and Essex, by Lytton Strachey.
I also want to make the following personal acknowledge­
ments: to Mrs Veronica Pritchard, Captain Peter Charig,
R.N. (Retd.) and Mr William Plomer, for much factual help,
and to my husband for constructively tampering with the
manuscript at all stages of its development.
 Chapter one

Peter Grimes
 Libretto by Montagu Slater from the poem The Borough (1810)
by George Crabbe.
First performed at Sadler’s Wells, June 1945.

CHARACTERS
peter grimes , a fisherman Peter Pears, tenor
Ellen ORFORD, a widow, schoolmis-
tress Joan Cross, soprano
a u nti e , landlady of “ The Boar” Edith Coates, contralto
1ST niece 'ì main attractions of “ The Blanche Turner, soprano
2ND niece / Boar” Minnia Bower, soprano
captain balstrode , retired merch­
ant skipper Roderick Jones, baritone
mrssedley , a rentier widow of an East Valetta Jacopi, mezzo-
India Company’s factor soprano
swallow , a lawyer Owen Brannigan, bass
ned Keene , apothecary and quack Edmund Donlevy, baritone
Robert boles , fisherman and Metho­
dist Morgan Jones, tenor
r e v . Horace adams , the rector Tom Culbert, tenor
Hobson, carrier Frank Vaughan, bass
b o y , apprentice to Grimes Leonard Thompson,
silent
chorus of townspeople and fisherfolk

Conductor: Reginald Goodall

Producer: Eric Crozier
Scenery and Costumes: Kenneth Green
Chorus Master: Alan Melville
SYNOPSIS

The story takes place in the Borough, a small fishing town on

the East coast, towards 1830.

prologue: The Moot Hall at the inquest on the death of

Peter Grimes’s apprentice. The evidence is inconclusive and
Swallow, the coroner, advises Grimes: “ Do not get another
boy apprentice. Get a fisherman to help you, big enough to
stand up for himself.” Grimes is bitter about the verdict,
“ died in accidental circumstances” , which gives plenty of
scope to the gossips. When the court is cleared, Ellen Orford,
the schoolmistress, offers her sympathy and plans a new start
for Grimes.

act i, s c e n e 1: A street by the sea, a few days later. Ned

Keene, the apothecary, has found a new apprentice for
Grimes. Since the inquest Grimes has been shunned by most
of the Borough, but he is not entirely friendless— Balstrode,
a retired merchant skipper, and Keene help him to haul his
boat, and Ellen Orford goes with Carter Hobson to fetch the
apprentice. Balstrode announces the coming storm and when
everyone has retired to their own homes or “ The Boar” he
finds Grimes still working at his boat. Balstrode, like Swallow
and Ellen, suggests a new beginning for Grimes, but Grimes
is not willing to take his advice and reveals his plan to marry
Ellen, even if he has to “ fish the sea dry” to offer her respect­
ability.

scene 2: “ The Boar” the same night. The storm is raging

outside. Within, everyone is on edge; the situation is not
improved by the hysterical Mrs Sedley awaiting her supply of
laudanum, drunken Bob Boles, the Methodist preacher, and
4 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

Grimes’s wild entry and poetic utterance which provokes

“ He’s mad or drunk” from the crowd. At last Ellen arrives
with the boy, whom Grimes insists on immediately taking
away to his lonely hut.

act ii, scene i: Sunday morning, a few weeks later. Ellen

and the new apprentice are on the beach while Matins is in
progress in the parish church. Ellen discovers that the boy’s
clothes are torn and he is bruised— “ well, it’s begun” , she
says. Grimes enters, to take the boy fishing and when Ellen
argues that it is his holiday Grimes replies, “ This is whatever
day I say it is!” They quarrel, Grimes strikes Ellen and
roughly takes the boy with him. The news that “ Grimes is at
his exercise” soon runs through the Borough and, roused to
ferocity, the men form a party to investigate Grimes at his hut.

scene 2 : Meanwhile Grimes is preparing to go fishing. Just

as he is about to set out he hears the procession approaching
his hut. The boy starts out down the cliff and falls to his
death. Grimes hurries after him and the party arrives to find
a “ neat and empty hut” .

act hi , scene i : The beach and street a few nights later.

A dance is taking place in the Moot Hall. Everyone appears
to have forgotten Grimes for the moment, except Mrs Sedley,
who overhears Balstrode tell Ellen that Grimes’s boat is in—
and that the boy’s jersey has been washed in by the tide.
Mrs Sedley rouses Swallow and Hobson to form a search
party to find Grimes.

scene 2: A few hours later. A thick fog is everywhere; the

fog-horn and the cries of the searchers can be heard distantly.
Peter Grimes is exhausted and almost insane. When Ellen
and Balstrode discover him by his boat. Balstrode tells him to
take his boat out and sink it: which he does. With the dawn
life begins again in the Borough.
With hindsight we can see Peter Grimes to be in many ways
typical of Britten’s operatic subjects. The East Anglian back­
ground runs through four of the first ten operas. The por­
trayal of the individual in conflict with society is a more
important theme. The detailed portrait of an enclosed
community, whether a nation or the inmates of an isolated
country house, is a part of all the operas. The musical treat­
ment is also at one with the succeeding works. Opera is a
blunt instrument; compared with the conversation of
chamber music it is public speech: it addresses itself to an
audience— in Britten’s later operas it tends to do this explicitly
in the Prologues.
Already in Peter Grimes, however, Britten’s method at times
tends towards the chamber-music approach that later became
an inevitable development, artistically as well as economically.
Grimes does no public speaking. In an intimacy of style
unparalleled, I find, since Handel, Grimes’s character reveals
itself in a dramatically restrained and almost wholly musical
dimension. All that he does in the opera is to strike Ellen and
mildly manhandle the boy. The rest is style. The most
dramatic events in the opera— the death of the boy and the
death of Grimes— are ignored musically. This is not what the
opera is about.
The Prologue, for example— the inquest on the death of
Grimes’s previous apprentice— is not so much concerned
with putting across the incidents which led up to the death
(Grimes covers these far more fluently in his conversation
with Balstrode in Act I, Scene i) as with making concrete
and visual Grimes’s psychological predicament : not only one
man against a crowd, but one man put on trial, informally,
illegally, by the crowd. Structurally the scene is a through-
composed movement with a coda for Grimes and Ellen.
6 THE O PERA S OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

(Ellen is tentatively aligned with Grimes in the trial, not too

closely, because he has to be seen in dramatic isolation; but
her loyalty is firmly expressed in the ćoda-duet, at first miti­
gated by the “ cross-purposes” of bitonality, then deludedly
united with Grimes in unison.)
Vocally, the Prologue establishes the characters of Swallow,
Grimes, Ellen, and to a large extent the Borough. Visually,
we also get individual impressions of the Rector, Boles,
Auntie, and Mrs Sedley. The backbone of the instrumental
music is the busy, important-sounding opening four bars—
soon associated with the self-important Swallow. We see him
as a rigidly efficient lawyer, yet unscrupulously “ feeding” the
gossips:

EX. i.
S wallow
m ezza voce

Died - in ac - c i- d e n - t a l c ir - cum-stan-ces. But.

Grimes is very much changed from the villain of Crabbe’s

poem. The tragedy of his situation lies in the paradox
that while he is whole-heartedly of the Borough, “ rooted
here” , he does not speak the same language. The tragedy
of his character cannot be expressed so concisely. An anti­
villain, he behaves neither villainously nor nobly; in com­
pensation for his inability to deal with life, he has highly
articulate “ waking dreams” , but the aspirations he expresses
in his dreams are translated only in material terms in every­
day life. Grimes cannot make any specific moves towards
marrying Ellen, because this marriage, and the idyllic home,
are part of his dream life. We can see early on in the opera
P E T E R GRIMES 7
that the marriage is bound to remain a dream, since Grimes’s
only approach to it is over materialistic hurdles of profits and
“ golden opinions”— and these Grimes is manifestly incapable
of winning. Much of this is conveyed in the first notes he sings,
or rather in the chord change in the orchestra :

ex . 2.
P eter p sostenuto

Six orchestral interludes introduce the six scenes of the

opera. Roughly generalising, we can describe the act Intro­
ductions, I, III, and V as expository, and the inter-scene
Interludes, II, IV , and V I as developmental. From another
point of view, the first group are primarily tone pictures of
the sea— almost a character in the drama; and the second
group analytical of Grimes’s character. (Interlude II some­
what disturbs the neatness of this, since it is undoubtedly
portraying the physical storm, and only towards the end are
we explicitly shown that it is the turbulence of Grimes’s
character that is at issue.)
Act I, Scene i : the Borough at work. There are two types of
choruses in Peter Grimes : we have already heard, in the court­
room scene, a cluster of small choruses of the first type— the
Borough “ at its exercise” , gossiping, looking outwards at
Grimes. The music is imitative of conversational tones. (It is
also usually imitative!) In the court-room scene, in fact, it is
only the style of the music that puts the choruses in this cate­
gory— the words are formalised aphorisms that fall short of
the spontaneous effect of the music. “ Look out for squalls” in
8 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B RI T T E N

this scene and “ Talk of the devil” in the next are more
typical. The second type of chorus is the choral movement, a
vocal equivalent of the interludes, with the Borough looking
inwards at itself— but not too closely— and drawing, in the
ceremony of regular phrases and architectural melodic lines,
a deceptively innocuous portrait. It is a chorus of this sort that
opens (and closes) the opera:

ex. 3.

(The first interlude continues in the orchestra and underlies

much of the subsequent scene.)
It is a long choral movement, loosely enclosing brief scenes
of recitative in which the minor characters of the Borough are
delineated briefly and memorably. The libretto does not give
the music the chance to be at all subtle in the recitative and
informal ensembles ; it is very mannered— nearly as much so
as in Lucretia without the justification of a consciously arti­
ficial style, an attribute of the later opera— and flows in
P E T E R GRIMES 9

statements and observations rather than communications.

And so we are never tricked— as I think we are in Billy Budd
and The Turn of the Screw— into thinking that this is how the
characters normally express themselves :

Had Auntie no nieces we’d never respect her

You jeer, but if they wink you’re eager to follow
A man should have hobbies to cheer his private life

This results, at any rate, in keeping the minor characters

minor; there is a kaleidoscopic effect as they emerge from and
rejoin the corporate character of the Borough— or hover on
the edge as Balstrode does when the first man-hunt begins—
which occurs again in Billy Budd and gives detail and realism
to potentially slow-moving and formal choral scenes.
The continuous movement stops when Grimes appears.
Who will help him haul his boat? This instantly divides—
very unequally— the bystanders. In a short ensemble Balstrode
and Keene range themselves on Grimes’ side by helping him.
They sing a capstan song, above which Auntie expresses her
disinterest in the Grimes-baiting situation and Boles, the
Methodist preacher, denounces Grimes. The short self-
contained forms are linked by continuing references to the
material of the first interlude; it underlies a conversational
passage in which Ned Keene reveals that he has obtained a
new apprentice for Grimes. Another formal scheme begins
with the miniature air of Hobson the carter, “ I have to go
from pub to pub” — a further example of the individualisa­
tion, albeit stylised, of a member of the Borough. Chorus
interjections, of the “ gossip” type, are incorporated in the
aria. Ellen, who aligns herself with Grimes in the unison
cadence of the Prologue, now links herself with the carter.
She repeats his short air to the words :

The boy needs comfort late at night,

He needs a welcome on the road,
IO THE OPERAS OF BENJAMIN B RI T T E N

Coming here strange he’ll be afraid—

I’ll mind your passenger !

Elements of this tune become the bass of the next brief gossip
chorus, “ Ellen, you’re leading us a dance” , and a free con­
version of two ideas in it becomes the basis of Ellen’s first
important aria:
ex. 4
Andante conmoto: largamente

Let her a - mong you w ith -o u t fault cast the first stone -

The heavy triplets of Hobson’s “ picking up parcels” are

opened out into this irregular, liquid rhythm. The descending
scale is not only an inversion of “ my journey back is late at
night” but also a shape which is going to become character­
istic of Ellen’s music. It is this scale that is extended upwards
in the ensuing dialogue between the grotesque Mrs Sedley,
and Ned Keene. Mrs Sedley, “ a rentier widow of an East
India Company’s factor” , comes far nearer to being the
villain of the opera than Grimes, nearer even than the cor­
porate character of the Borough, which is redeemed by its
mixed motives. Yet this deeply serious tragedy is continually
prodded along, poked into action and finally driven to in­
evitability by the machinations of this comic caricature.
The scene finale begins. The pattern for this extended en­
semble is used repeatedly in the opera. It combines the two
types of chorus previously described. To begin, the named
characters have a largamente commentary on the action :

ex. 5
B aistrode

Now the flood tide------ and sea hor - ses

peter grimes II

(The intervals of these first four notes are to permeate the

rest of the scene, the following interlude, and intermittently
the second scene of the act.) Against this the Chorus have an
action or gossip-style chorus, “ Look out for squalls, It’s veer­
ing in from sea, Look the storm cone, The wind veers in at
gale force.” The pattern is reversed when the Chorus have
the largamente phrase and the soloists continue with their
quick-moving counter-subject. The diverse forces are drawn
together dramatically for the phrase :

ex. 6

Ì O tide_ that waits for no man, spare our coasts !

This unanimous, spontaneous utterance by the Chorus and

lesser principals is paralleled in the last act of the opera, the
“ Peter Grimes” halloos of the man-hunt. The opera makes
great use of verbal and melodic quotations and retrospections
towards its end; this is an instance in which it also quotes a
sonority.
The end of the scene is a great contrast: in a dialogue,
Balstrode tries to make closer contact with Grimes. They both
recall the Prologue— Grimes in the sostenuto phrase on one
note, “ I live alone, the habit grows” , and Balstrode, quoting
Swallow’s music, “ Then the crowner sits to hint but not to
mention crimes/And publishes an open verdict whispered
about this Peter Grimes.” Grimes also recalls the storm in
which his first apprentice died; the semitone motif of the
actual incipient storm is rephrased as a minor ninth. Major
and minor, this is an important interval in his music, epito­
mising his larger than life-size stature in the drama as well as
the perpetual longing for the unattainable with which he is
12 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

tormented. In contrast, we see him as the utterly ineffectual

man of action in ‘T h ey listen to money” . Rhythmically, he is
literally attempting to beat the Borough of the gossip-choruses
at its own game. Finally we have the, as it were, da capo of
this portrait of Grimes. Left alone he sings :

ex. 7
P eter

The storm-derived minor ninth expands into the major: the

unattainable vision he gropes after.
This scene is an exposition. More than the Prologue, it is
an introduction to the Borough— its way of life, its trades,
its vital dependence on unpropitious elements. With virtu­
osity it depicts a society of individuals which is nevertheless
a community. Grimes is an everpresent factor in the scene.
Spontaneous judgements, for and against him, are made on
every side. Balstrode, in the storm-ensemble, appears as a
kind of leader— not too influential, though : he converts no
one by helping Grimes. (He comes nearest in this opera to
being a character with whom the audience can identify, but
is not drawn quite fully enough to sustain this role.)
The second scene of the act is tenser because it is less ex­
pansive in scope. It is physically claustrophobic because the
community (or sufficient representatives of it) is confined
within “ The Boar” ; emotionally, because of the storm which
has raged throughout the orchestral interlude II, and—
superb dramatic device— bursts in upon the inmates of “ The
Boar” whenever anyone opens and struggles to shut the door.
This and the imminent arrival of Grimes’s new apprentice
keep everyone on edge, and the individual incidents with
Mrs Sedley and the drunken Boles intensify rather than relieve
the mood.
P E T E R GRIMES 13

The storm interlude is based on the first four notes of Ex.

5, extended in a semitonal “ worrying” pattern derived from
Balstrode’s line in his dialogue with Grimes at the end of
Scene i . It is developed into the large-scale evocation of the
storm which is necessary to prepare for the atmosphere sus­
tained in the following scene. We have to remember that it
is there even when “ The Boar’s” door is shut. Towards the
end of the interlude the da capo section of Grimes’s aria is
referred to: it is not, I think, making a big dramatic point
here. The storm is too patently physical for us to associate it
with Grimes’s maladjustments. It is drawing a simile, not a
metaphor; a comparison, not an identification.
In the conversation of various minor characters that opens
the second scene we can discern how much easier it is to
establish caricature figures— the nieces and Auntie— than the
somewhat more weighty ones— Balstrode and Keene— par­
ticularly in the absence of Grimes. It is their relationship
with him, the simple fact that it is unprejudiced, that is their
dramatic justification and it is also on this point that their
characterisation depends. When Grimes is not about, their
importance and their effectiveness are reduced. Balstrode
does, however, lead another ensemble of the inward-looking
type— “ We live and let live and look/We keep our hands to
ourselves.” This has a horrifying irony which cannot be fully
appreciated at this point in the opera.
When Grimes enters it is not the actual storm that bursts
through the door with him but the storm he carries about
within him : the scale passage figures initially belonged to the
storm after which his first apprentice died; the bass mutters
of “ terrors and tragedies” that he aspired to banish in the da
capo section of that monologue, the big interval is the minor
ninth, not the major— an ominous entrance! This entrance
becomes continuous with Grimes’s second aria, “ Now the
Great Bear and Pleiades” — the interpolated conversation and
whispered gossip chorus (“ Talk of the devil and there he is” )
i4 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

hang fire over an E pedal— this makes it seem a continuous

statement, a strong stroke of characterisation. There is little
enough to take hold of in Grimes’s character.
His aria is a beautifully constructed piece. It is strophic—
the words strictly and the music more freely. The voice sings
repeated notes over a canonic exposition in the strings which
is pulled up to a stationary chord when, in a cadenza-like
flowering, the voice makes the fifth entry of the canon :
ex. 8
Adagio
P E T E R GRIMES *5
The last verse is split into an agitated passage, “ But if the
horoscope’s bewildering . . and a return to the mood of
the first verse— not exact, however, as there are only half as
many lines left, so the canon is compressed, this time working
down the instruments: “ Who can turn skies back and begin
again?”
The importance of this number cannot be overestimated.
This is what the opera is about. Grimes— the new Grimes
created by Slater and Britten as opposed to Crabbe’s villain
— is a most apt protagonist for an opera, in that his character
can only be fully revealed in music. I will go further and say
that it is only the complete beauty of this aria that makes the
drama a tragedy :
To wicked spirits are horrid shapes assign’d,
This beauteous form assures a piteous mind.
Here, certainly, we have a “ beauteous” sound which assures
us of the essential good of the verbally uncommunicable
character of Peter Grimes.
The crowd in “ The Boar” are, naturally, utterly be­
wildered. The pedal note that led up to the aria now be­
comes an inverted pedal over the confused chorus, not moving
off till Boles’s taunt, “ his exercise is not with men but killing
boys!” This is the first outspoken condemnation of Grimes—
following closely on the revelation of a musical character
which is certainly not that of a murderer— and it also intro­
duces the curiously sinister expression “ exercise” which is to
be important in the next act.
They sing a round to keep the peace. It is a dramatic
incident which, like the Prologue, demonstrates the larger
situation : the community conforms, Grimes cannot (his entry
in augmentation recalls the Prologue— as in his characterising
interval of the ninth he is again larger than life) and he is
finally overwhelmed and obliterated by the conformists. The
denouement of the drama is here, in musical terms, though
l6 T HE O PERA S OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

we can only see this when we know what is going to happen.

After this, an abrupt close— Ellen, Hobson, and the
apprentice arrive, and the storm music takes over in the
orchestra till the end of the scene. One point worth mention­
ing is that Ellen sings the phrase “ Peter will take you home”
(to the apprentice) to notes which outline, with one inter­
mediate step, Grimes’s major ninth— his idyllic home, and
Ellen’s, too, after she has identified herself with Grimes in
the closing duet of the Prologue. The crowd take up her
notes; they do not actually sing Grimes’s ninth, but jump the
major sixth from the intermediate step (“ Home! Do you call
that home!” ), ending, however, with the fall from F to E|?
which represents the accomplishment of his aspirations. It is
a kind of profanation. There are no specifically religious
issues in Peter Grimes. The situation, the action and the
motivation of the characters could hardly be more wordly.
Even Grimes cannot see a way to attain a spiritual life without
vanquishing the world on its own terms. Nevertheless the
music of Grimes’s arias is so numinously aware that attempts
to break in upon it by the uninitiated become a blasphemy
which direct our sympathies firmly towards Grimes, even at
this moment when he is obviously oblivious to the boy’s
needs.
In the second act, the interlude again continues into the
first scene. It is a Sunday morning. The sunlight, the waves,
and the music all glitter with innocence in this tension-free
setting. Ellen now becomes the voice of the new apprentice
— we have already seen her identify herself with Grimes and
Hobson— “ Shall I tell you what your life was like?” She is
portrayed not only as one who sides with Grimes— that would
be too limited a portrait of her, besides weakening Grimes’s
isolation— but as one who in general is capable of sympathy:
the enlightened, educated member of the Borough (in con­
spicuous contrast to the Rector).
It is another two-layer scene, like the storm and the “ Boar”
P E T E R GRIMES !7

interior. The organ and congregation can be heard intermit­

tently against the dialogue or, rather, monologue, as the boy
never speaks. It is another aspect of the very complete por­
trayal of the community: we are never allowed to forget
their presence. O f course, it provides a useful opportunity
for dramatic comment and irony:
' ellen: John, you may have heard the story of the
prentice Peter had before.
] co n g r e g a t i o n : . . . and shades ofnight return once
. more.
( ellen : John, what are you trying to hide?
\ congregation : O Lord, open Thou our lips.

The irrelevance of the congregation’s words to the situation

on the beach is as revealing as their unconscious aptness—
when Ellen discovers the bruise, and the continuation of the
horror that this implies, the congregation bursts in with a
fortissimo “ Gloria” . Ellen’s aria / ‘Child you’re not too young
to know where roots of sorrow are” , obliterates the church
music with its intensity.
The changing numbers of the liturgy follow the changing
dramatic situation. The congregation begin the “ Benedicite
Its expression of undiscriminating energy accompanies
Grimes’s entrance— he has seen a shoal and wants to take the
apprentice off fishing at once. Ellen remonstrates that this is
the boy’s agreed day of rest. Grimes’s reply is sinister: “ He
works for me, leave him alone, he’s mine!” Ellen has a dark,
expressive phrase, taken from the setting of the Benedicite—
“ This unrelenting work, this grey unresting industry, What
aim, what future, what peace will your hard profits buy?”
Grimes answers with “ Buy us a home, buy us respect” — a
continuation of “ They listen to money” in Act I, Scene i.
To the notes of the derisive “ Do you call that home !” from
the previous scene (Ellen briefly identified as a prying out­
sider), she sings: “ Peter, tell me one thing, where the
i8 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

youngster got that ugly bruise ?” completing the phrase in

her scale-wise melodic idiom. Grimes answers only in minor
ninths, but he is later moved by Ellen to adopt her style for
the phrase “ My only hope depends on you, if you take it away
what’s left?” — that this is a forlorn hope we can at this stage
guess, because Grimes has no language within his own style
to convey this tenderness. He soon reverts to his own idiom:
ex . 9
p6TER con forza

J t f ijn frrru i>

wrong to plan! wrong to try I wrong to live! Right to — die!

Ellen expresses what Grimes cannot face : “ We were mistaken

to have dreamed— Peter! We’ve failed.” In his despair he
strikes her; from the church (which has been silent for some
time) comes an Amen and Grimes breaks out with :
ex . io

pgn r if "f ¥1 f y nym

So be it. And God have mer - cyjip on me!

This scene reveals all that up to now has been mere rumour
and suspicion to be fact— the boy has a bruise, Grimes strikes
Ellen. We witness this unwillingly. To give our revulsion
outlets other than Grimes, there follows another view of the
Borough “ at its exercise” .
Ex. io sets in motion an extended number involving much
musical and dramatic interest. It is enunciated in a backwards
version of the “ Great Bear” scheme: Grimes’s phrase sets the
orchestra (this time the brass) off in canon. The phrase itself
expresses the utter inevitability of the whole tragedy. As in
the storm chorus in Act I, Britten combines naturalistic
chorus material— the sort I have been calling gossip-style—
“ What is it? What do you suppose?” — with (in the full
P E T E R GRIMES 19

meaning of the word) the artificial phrase of Ex. 10— “ Grimes

is at his exercise!” (A strange, vivid, pregnant expression that
whips the Borough, with the exception of Balstrode and Ellen,
into a mood of general accusation.) The pace increases. The
attention of the Borough focuses on Ellen. A brassy theme
like a revivalist hymn is shared by Boles and the Chorus,
contrasted with another fine semplice melody for Ellen: “ We
planned that their lives should have a new start.” Auntie and
Balstrode side with Ellen, but the others turn on her with
increasing venom. The accompaniment speed and dynamic
level increase again (“strepitoso, archi-strepitoso e strepitosissimo !” )
and the wealth of ill feeling is formalised by the Rector and
Swallow as they assemble the vigilante procession. Hobson’s
drum stresses the primitive nature of the ceremony:
Now is gossip put on trial,
Now the rumours either fail,
Or are shouted in the wind,
Sweeping furious through the land . . .
Now the whispers stand out,
Now confronted by the fact,
Bring the branding iron and knife,
What’s done now is done for life.
The men of the Borough set off on their witch (warlock?)
hunt. The women remain, and sing unsatisfactory words to
enchanting music.
The fourth interlude is a set of nine variations on an elo­
quent viola theme— a decorated descending fifth— over a
passacaglia bass derived from Ex. 10. It is unutterably sad.
Once more it continues into the scene where it is shown to be
concerned with Grimes, particularly in his relationship with
the apprentices. Fragments of the variations return between
his shouted comments to the boy— he is in a “ towering rage”
with himself for his quarrel with Ellen and he turns this upon
the boy. Again he develops the “ they listen to money” argu­
20 THE O PERA S OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

ment. The fulfilment of his mercenary ambition sounded

improbable in Act I— here it appears as self-deluding as the
vision of the “ kindlier home” he dwells on next. When
Grimes sings of this imaginary life with Ellen, as in the last
scene his melodic line takes on the shape of hers (“ And she
would soon forget her schoolhouse ways . . .” ). Like all
Grimes’s vision arias, it is a feast of sensuous beauty.
We hear the Borough procession before Grimes does— he
is still listening to “ those voices that will not be drowned” .
They approach gradually. Grimes dispatches the boy down
the cliff edge as they knock at the door. We clearly see that
Grimes is nowhere near his apprentice when he falls; but his
demonstrable innocence comes too late. No one will believe
any good of him now. The search party enter the hut and
find it empty. Like their attempted entry into Grimes’s
musical “ home” in the scene in “ The Boar” , this physical
entry has a feeling of violation. They make a comic anti­
climax after the fury of emotion that prompted their pro­
cession, and the intensity of musical experience in the hut
scene. In fact, they are little more than a brief interruption.
When they leave, Balstrode is left alone in the hut to examine
the boy’s discarded clothes and to climb down the cliff after
Grimes. What we hear is, in fact, the tenth variation of the
passacaglia: the music returns to the viola theme of the
interlude (inverted), accompanied by the celesta figuration
which appeared when the boy fell. There is one final state­
ment of the passacaglia bass.
The third act opens with the last “ sea interlude” ; an un­
complicated evocation of the sea at night. The scene is the
village street, a dance is taking place in the Moot Hall, “ The
Boar” is doing a flourishing trade— again we see the Borough
community about their habitual occupations and recreations.
Musically it is a two-tiered scene once more, with a dance
band off-stage which plays a substantial part in accompany­
ing the dialogue. New light is still being cast on the minor
P E T E R GRIMES 21

characters: Swallow (as a ludicrous lover), the Rector, and

above all Mrs Sedley, whose malice goes far beyond the
capacity for idle rumour of the other Borough inhabitants :
Crime that my hobby is by cities hoarded.
Rarely are country minds lifted to murder,
The noblest of my crimes which are my study.
And now the crime is here and I am ready!

She overhears Balstrode— in a dialogue punctuated by ref­

erences to the passacaglia bass (for the first time the dance
band has a prolonged silence)— telling Ellen that Grimes’s
boat is back (he has been missing for some days), and that
he, Balstrode, has found the boy’s jersey washed in by the
tide. This prompts Ellen to sing the most concentrated and
deeply tragic aria in her part, “ Embroidery in childhood was
a luxury of idleness” . Like all the lyrical music in the opera,
its form is transparently clear. All the resources of organisa­
tion are in the melodic line. This is thrown into bold relief as
it is surrounded by recitative on a monotone. Ellen and
Balstrode pledge their loyalty to Grimes in a canonic develop­
ment of the Ex. io phrase, a further identification of Ellen,
and now of Balstrode, too, with Grimes. The Borough is
shown to be antagonistic towards Grimes when they do not
hold any evidence against him, while Ellen and Balstrode,
knowing some and suspecting more of the tragedy, choose
this moment to align themselves with him.
Mrs Sedley manages to alert Swallow and Hobson to set
up a new search for Grimes. Her creeping chromatic music
accompanies a new gossip chorus— “ Who holds himself apart
lets his pride rise,/Him who despises us we’ll destroy” (un­
comfortable words again, to represent spontaneous speech).
The chromatic theme is developed into a wider-ranging line
as the minor principals join the Chorus to create another big
ensemble in the style of the storm chorus and “ Grimes is at
his exercise” — the Chorus and soloists merge and re-emerge
22 THE O PERA S OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

in the ensemble just as their characters are at times individu­

alised and at times identified with the Borough. Subsequently
a Làndler tune which was previously played by the dance
band becomes a wordless climax to this second man-hunt—
distinguished from the Act II procession by the absence of
even a pretence at law and order. Hobson’s drum was spine-
chilling in the second act, but it was controlled and purpose­
ful; here, the use of the dance tune implies the irresponsibility
of the singers, their wordless fury suggests hysteria. Then the
cries of “ Peter Grimes” build up, through the ensemble. The
scene ends with concerted halloos recalling earlier impas­
sioned outbursts by the crowd: “ O tide that waits for no
man . . .” and “ Home? Do you call that home!”
Interlude, V I, like IV, is wholly a Grimes interlude. It
shows in musical terms his mental breakdown. The form this
takes is predictable. Grimes throughout the opera has shown
a tendency to repeat himself (in itself a characteristic of a
lonely man) and to dwell repeatedly on his worldly ambi­
tions— “ they listen to money” has already occurred three
times. He has been shown to dress his Ellen-orientated dreams
in Ellen’s vocal style (at least twice), to associate his sense of
an undeserved evil fate with the motif in which he first
realised this. (Ex. io, and its inversion when he blames the
apprentice in the hut scene for being “ the cause of every­
thing” . It is, of course, not the apprentice’s fault. It is Grimes’s
— for being himself— and this point the music conveys to the
audience if not to Grimes). This interlude contains fragments
of all these, linked by a sustained D F # C chord on the horns.
When the scene begins, the off-stage Chorus take over the
horn chord for their distant cry of “ Grimes” . A (tuba) fog­
horn adds an E[? phrasing-off to D; the fog represents drama­
tically both the physical and mental confusion of the scene,
as in the second act of Billy Budd. This semitone which appears
on the fog-horn— really Grimes’s minor ninth deprived of the
energy to overshoot the octave— dominates the fragmentary
P E T E R GRIMES 23

vocal line when Grimes enters, “ weary and demented” , re­

calling vocally, as the interlude did instrumentally, earlier
scenes in the opera. The recollections are always distorted:
the music in which Swallow at the inquest offered a new start
to Grimes (“ Peter Grimes I here advise you . . .” ) is sung
to words which helped to hound him (“ accidental circum­
stances” ) ; the notes to which he earlier sang “ I’ll marry
Ellen” and resolved to “ get money to choke down rumour’s
throat” here contain the failure of his plans: “ the argument’s
finished, friendship lost, gossip is shouting” . The off-stage
shouts of “ Peter Grimes” approach and recede in the fog.
When they are very loud and near, Grimes “ roars back at the
shouters” his own name. This is perhaps the most horrifying
moment in the scene. Ellen and Balstrode find him, but he
is no longer aware of Ellen. He sings the major ninth dream-
consummation music, “ what harbour shelters peace” (Ex. 7).
In spoken words, Balstrode tells him to “ sail out until you
lose sight of the Moot Hall. Then sink the boat. . . .” There
is no musical portrayal of his death because it has been (as in
Lucretia) anticipated in the preceding minutes.
The music reverts to the first interlude and the opening
chorus— slowly at first, speeding up with the dawn. “ Rumour”
of a boat sinking out at sea is dismissed as a rumour: the
final irony. I think we hate the Chorus in this closing scene.
It is an opera so full of judgements, right and wrong, mis­
guided and wilfully malicious, that the audience is compelled
to react very strongly to it. Its miracle is that a character as
unattractive, unapproachable, and undeniably unpleasant as
Grimes in the end manages to gain our sympathy. His is not
a character with whom we can admit to identifying ourselves;
yet his musical character is one to which we listen not with
pity, but with delight.
 Chapter two

The Rape o f Lucretia

 Libretto by Ronald Duncan from a play Le Viol de Lucrèce
(1931), by Andre Obey.
First performed at Glyndebourne, July 1946.

CHARACTERS
Peter Pears, tenor
MALE CHORUS
{
Aksel Schiotz
Joan Cross, soprano
FEMALE CHORUS
{
Flora Nielsen
Owen Brannigan, bass
COLLATINUS, a Roman General
{
Norman Walker
Edmund Donlevy, baritone
Junius , a Roman General
{
Frederick Sharp
tarquinius , son of Tarquinius Super­ Otakar Kraus, baritone
bus, the Etruscan ruler of Rome {
Frank Rogier
Kathleen Ferrier, contralto
Luc reti a , wife of Collatinus
{
Nancy Evans

{
Anna Pollock, mezzo-
b i anc a , Lucretia’s old nurse soprano
Catherine Lawson
Margaret Ritchie, soprano
Lu c i a , a maid
{
Lesley Duff

Conductors : Ernest Ansermet and Reginald Goodall

Producer: Eric Crozier
Designer: John Piper
Director of Musical Studies : Hans Oppenheim
SYNOPSIS

act i, i ntroduct i on : The Male and Female Choruses

paint the background to the rise of the Tarquins and the
Graeco-Roman war. They reveal that they will witness the
tragedy of Lucretia and Tarquinius “ through eyes which
once have wept with Christ’s own tears” .

scene i: The General’s tent in the camp oustide Rome.

Tarquinius, Junius, and Collatinus, three Roman generals,
are drinking together, discussing the wager which took place
the previous night which proved Lucretia to be the only
virtuous wife. Junius tempts Tarquinius to “ prove Lucretia
chaste” . Tarquinius calls for his horse and rides to Rome.

scene 2: A room in Lucretia’s house in Rome, the same

evening. Lucretia is at home with her women, Bianca and
Lucia; Tarquinius arrives and requires hospitality for the
night.

act ii, i n t roduct i on : The Male and Female Choruses

again fill in the political history of the Etruscan domination
of Rome.

scene i : Lucretia’s bedroom. Lucretia is asleep. Tarquinius

wakes her, overcomes her resistance, and ravishes her. The
Choruses sing a hymn to the Virgin.

scene 2: A room in Lucretia’s house, the next morning.

Bianca and Lucia are arranging flowers in the bright sun­
light. Lucretia enters, subdued, with barely controlled
hysteria which breaks out when she is given the doubly
28 THE O PERA S OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

symbolic orchids to arrange. She sends a message for Col-

latinus to come to her and in her distraction weaves the
flowers into a wreath. Collatinus arrives with Junius. Lucretia
enters, in mourning; she tells Collatinus what has happened,
rejects his forgiveness and consolation and stabs herself. The
assembled characters lament her death and the transience of
life. The Male and Female Choruses, from their Christian
standpoint, offer a vision of redemption and eternal life.
 Schiitz, after the economic depredations of the Thirty Years
War, was required to abandon the resources he had pre­
viously called upon to perform his music, and wrote instead,
in an austere and economical style, music for the austere and
economical times in which he found himself. Opera in
England has never been a financially flourishing concern
(cause or effect of the sparse indigenous tradition?) and
Britten’s chamber operas are in part a result of this condition.
However, opera aligned with the refinement of language of
chamber music was predictably attractive to Britten, as was
the opportunity for displaying individual vocal and instru­
mental personality and virtuosity. This opera must have been
to some extent a conjunction of the congenial and the
convenient. The play, too, seems apt for this treatment.
André Obey’s Le Viol de Lucrèce has in its two Narrators,
who comment on and at times describe the action, an extra
layer of theatrical manner that is useful in transforming a
story into an opera. And chamber opera can employ the
extra formality of some sort of framing device with advantage.
Albert Herring has its expository first scene, The Turn of
the Screw, a prologue, and the parables Curlew River and
The Burning Fiery Furnace have the most elaborate framing
of all, in the processions involving not only the singers
but the orchestra, too— the participation in the visual drama
of the instrumentalists is a development of the exposition of
their personalities in the earlier chamber operas, Lucretia in
particular.
The instruments chosen for Lucretia are comprehensive in
their representation, apart from the absence of the brighter
brass: flute (doubling piccolo and alto flute), oboe (doubling
cor anglais), clarinet (doubling bass clarinet), bassoon, horn,
percussion, harp, string quartet with double bass. The conduc-
30 T HE O PERA S OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

tor plays the piano in the recitatives. The personality of each

of these instruments is fully explored in the course of the opera.
There is no overture— no instrumental overture. There is
instead an introduction by the Male and Female Choruses
(Obey’s narrators transformed into a pair of Christian com­
mentators of didactic if not pedagogic inclinations) who,
when the curtain rises, are discovered seated on either side of
the stage reading from books of Roman history. This is a pas­
sage of recitative built around recurrent instrumental chord
groups. The Male and Female Choruses have the most formal,
unconversational recitative in the opera, but it is already a
much more flexible language than in Peter Grimes— less
reminiscent of the chordal and cadential shapes of eighteenth-
century recitative, more closely derived from the words set
and flowing more freely into passages of arioso :
EX. II M ale C horus

f espress. e dim.

m IÉ p p p p p m
And always he’d pay his way— with the pro - di-gious li-b er-a l - i- t y o f self coin’d obsequious flat - te-ry ;
the ra pe of l u g r e t i a 31
There is a hint of the exciting variety of sounds that can be
produced with the chamber ensemble in the fragment of a
march at the words “ so here the grumbling Romans march
from Rome . . .” : double bass col legno and timpani in
thirds, far below a high bassoon and soprano line. The intro­
duction ends with the Male and Female Choruses’ hymn—
this is to recur— which explains their purpose as Christian
interpreters of the action and also— they sing the same tune
in octaves— unites the two motifs which are associated in
general with Male and Female, and in particular with
Tarquinius and Lucretia throughout the opera. As a first-
time audience cannot at this stage know that they are motifs
much less to whom or what they are attached, all that is
conveyed by the hymn is a certain solemnity and formality;
it is significant music, the significance of which has not yet
been revealed.
The first scene is the camp outside Rome. After the recita­
tive style of the introduction and the spare ceremonial of the
hymn, the music now assumes a more expansive style, depict­
ing the “ thirsty evening” with muted strings and the harp
representing “ the noise of crickets” in a little five-note phrase
that dominates the melodic line of the Male Chorus. The
Male Chorus describes the mood, making explicit the func­
tion of the atmospheric music— there is not much independent
instrumental music in Lucretia\ it is from this point of view
the most unambiguous of the operas as the choruses are
always present verbally to define the drama when the pro­
tagonists of the opera are not singing.
The physical atmosphere is an incipient thunderstorm. The
dramatic atmosphere is also pregnant with the quarrel that
is to occur. Collatinus, Junius, and Tarquinius are discovered
drinking and they sing a drinking song which is essentially
competitive : their rivalry is never far below the surface, even
in moments of apparent relaxation. In recitative the generals
discuss the wager which took place the previous night, proving
32 T HE O P E R A S OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

Lucretia to be the only virtuous wife. This immediately

divides the generals: Junius, bitter at his wife’s unfaithfulness
and suspicious of the political advantage Lucretia’s chastity
gives Collatinus; Tarquinius, detached and teasing except at
the phrase:

Y ou for get I am the Prince o f Rome !

This has a (literally) imperious ring, a conspicuous phrase,

and important as being the first unconcealed appearance of
the Tarquinius motif. Collatinus attempts the role of peace­
maker and prompted by him, Tarquinius unites the trio in a
toast:

ex. 13

To the chaste Lu - ere - - - tia l

a passage which certainly drives home the Lucretia motif in

a sonorous well of sound, striking after the rapid quarrel
dialogue.
In the second half of this scene— my division, not specific­
ally Britten’s or Duncan’s— we see the men revealing them­
selves in more continuously lyrical and introspective music.
(It is an intensely lyrical opera: the absence of a chorus in
the conventional sense contributes to this. There is no music
— not even the Ride to Rome— which makes a rhythmic
impact at the expense of line. The motifs, on which the music
is increasingly dependent, are linear in conception and appli­
cation.) After the toast, Junius breaks out in a soliloquy aria
of hate and jealousy. The Lucretia motif is tossed about in
THE R A P E OF L U G R E T I A 33

the voice part and woodwind: Junius is “ sick of that name” .

There are not more than a couple of consecutive bars that do
not carry some statement or fragment of it. The aria is music­
ally (though not dramatically) a dialogue between Junius and
the Male Chorus. The Male Chorus’s coda contains a memor­
able melodic phrase :
ex. 14
M ale C horus

which recurs three more times in the course of the opera.

Against it we hear a typical transformation of the Lucretia
motif into an accompanying figure for the harp.
The conversation that follows, between Collatinus and
Junius, develops the implications of the Tarquinius motif,
which also stands for all the male characters, just as Lucretia
(and her motif) at times represents all women. The interval
of a fourth is loosely associated with all the men; the dimin­
ished interval is usually linked with Tarquinius, the per­
fect with Collatinus. Here Collatinus sings almost wholly in
descending and perfect fourths and Junius in ascending
and perfect fourths against a string accompaniment of inter­
locking thirds (Lucretia). Collatinus’s characteristically
philosophically ponderous aria follows, interrupted by
Tarquinius, who is still singing the drinking song from the
beginning of the scene. Tarquinius is presented as an almost
innocent character in this scene and indeed throughout the
opera— an ignoble savage— compared with Collatinus he is
attractively spontaneous and instinctive, compared with
Junius he is a harmless enough friend. All the vice, in this
dialogue, is on Junius’s side :
34 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B RI T T E N

tarquinius : There goes a happy man [Collatinus]

Junius : There goes a lucky man
tarquinius : His fortune is worth more than my Etruscan
crown
J unius : But he is subject to your crown
tarquinius : And I am subject to Lucretia.
— romantic panache, not lust! Tarquinius defends Lucretia
against Junius’s tensely delivered insinuations, and the
climax of their exchange is Tarquinius’s CT 11 prove Lucretia
chaste!”
The music returns to the “ thirsty evening” that opened
the scene and the Male Chorus describes the awakening of
desire in Tarquinius’s mind; the scene ends with the prince
calling for his horse and leads straight into the Interlude—
his Ride to Rome. It is remarkable that this scene is built
around three low male voices— with the interpolations of the
tenor Male Chorus— and is occupied exclusively with the
masculinity of the characters ; it is, however, imbued with the
Lucretia motif.
The Ride to Rome is one of the most memorable passages
of the opera. It is a peculiar aspect ofLucretia that Tarquinius’s
character is revealed more fully in the Male Chorus’s com­
mentary than in the music that Tarquinius himself sings. The
Ride has this function: to portray the wholly animal Tar­
quinius, so closely identified with his horse that they become
one:

ex . 15
THE R A P E OF L U G R E T I A 35

It is, in fact, a metaphor aria in the tradition of Handel’s

huntsmen Caesar, and Lucretia is portrayed, through meta­
phor and motif, in the River Tiber, which is conquered by
the horse. This image is recalled with a different sequel at
the moment of the rape: “ Now the great river underneath
the ground/Flows through Lucretia, And Tarquinius is
drowned.” Orchestrally it is an exciting tour de force in the
variety of textures achieved by the single instruments, from
the tutti-effect of the opening to the single flute which begins
the river section. Vocally it is no less magnificent, and it is
the most strongly characterised portrayal of Tarquinius in
the opera; indeed, in the last bar, at the climax of the phrase
quoted in Ex. 14 (this is its second appearance), a Bach-like
extension of the Lucretia motif occurs at Lucretia’s name. It
is the very voice of Tarquinius we hear although it is sung by
the Male Chorus.
The second scene introduces the women, closely balancing
the first in its division into two parts— background informa­
tion, and action germane to the plot. This scene divides at
the entry of Tarquinius. It also makes the same point of
introducing the characters in an activity which is, of itself,
characteristic— the drinking song in the generals’ tent is
paralleled by the spinning ensemble in Lucretia’s home.
There is a considerable contrast with the first scene, not only
the obvious contrasted pitch of the voices but in the pitch
and colour of the instruments : a different world is evoked in
the orchestra. The harp and woodwind are Lucretian instru­
ments par excellence, just as strings, turgid or brilliant, and
drums are associated with the male characters. The spinning
ensemble is long, lyrical relief after the Ride. Action is re­
stored with the false alarm of an imagined knock at the door.
Lucretia’s deeply passionate character is revealed more
quickly than Tarquinius’s (there is probably more to reveal),
especially in this recitative and the aria fragment “ How cruel
men are to teach us love” . Perhaps alone among Britten’s
36 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

major operatic characters (certainly in contrast with Grimes,

Herring, Vere, Gloriana, the Governess and the Madwoman)
Lucretia does not have a communications problem. Bianca
understands her almost better than Lucretia does herself.
Bianca and Lucia are the two facets of Lucretia— Bianca has
the virtue without the passion, Lucia the passion without (we
suspect) the virtue. Lucretia’s character demonstrates how
self-destructive this combination in one person is ; but it does
not isolate her from her women, although she disassociates her­
self from their less imaginative spheres of action. A second
extended formal number ensues while the women fold linen
— an essentially unpassionate and avowedly mundane occu­
pation in which Lucretia does not vocally take part.
After the false alarm and the false (or psychological) lul­
laby of the linen ensemble, the Male and Female Choruses
describe the real drama in interleaved fragments which
coalesce as Tarquinius arrives. The characters mime the
actions and reactions described by the choruses. The Tar­
quinius motif is conspicuous everywhere. The finale is a
number involving all the characters— a “ Goodnight” en­
semble underlaid with the descending diminished fourth, full
of foreboding. In this passage the characterisation is detailed
— Lucretia’s dignity, Bianca’s “ rude politeness at which a
servant can excel” , Lucia’s self-conscious, eager feminity,
firmly interrupted by the Male Chorus on behalf of Tar­
quinius (once more we feel these characters are, if moment­
arily, parallel).
The second act begins, like the first, with the Male and
Female Choruses filling in the background of the Etruscan
occupation, with off-stage Romans muttering revolt, and
leading into a second statement of their Christian function.
Although the chronological factor works the opposite way,
this has the effect of a gradually focusing lens— from the con­
temporary Roman point of view the tragedy of Lucretia is
minute, unimportant and even generally symptomatic of the
THE R AP E OF L U G R E T I A 37

times; the Christian standpoint magnifies it to at least life

size. This immediately leads into the actual presence of
Lucretia— and the actual enacting of the tragedy.
The lyrical scene-setting music which we have now come to
expect at the beginning of a scene is on this occasion a lullaby
for the sleeping Lucretia. There is a most lovely and unusual
texture of sound, with alto flute, bass clarinet and muted
horn, which appears quite self-sufficient until the vocal line
appears above it:
ex. 16
F emale C horus

(Unusual at this stage : low flutes and clarinets have also been
made significant in Albert Herrings the interlude of the second
act; The Turn of the Screw, Variation X I; Gloriano, the con­
spiracy scene in the second act, etc.) This music returns
intermittently up to the point when Tarquinius wakes
Lucretia—-just as odd bars of the Ride to Rome recur until
Tarquinius arrives at Lucretia’s home. It is first interrupted
by the description of Tarquinius’s approach, an exciting pas­
sage of whispered (spoken) recitative accompanied by bass,
tenor and side drums and cymbals. The chorus speaks the
important words “ The pity is that sin has so much grace It
moves like virtue” — both here and in the Ride to Rome I
feel the identification of the Male Chorus with Tarquinius to
be so close that it almost admits a grudging admiration on
the part of the Chorus for Tarquinius. Tarquinius is, anyway,
an un-villainly villain. The Ride to Rome is an almost heroic
piece. The libretto struggles to blacken his character by
38 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

(justifiable) aspersions on his horrifying ancestry and through

the political and racial background of the opera: “ Rome’s for
the Romans” and by implication “ Roman women are for
Roman men— only” ! This all seems irrelevant to the Tar-
quinius we hear. Musically it is his “ true Etruscan grace”
that most often comes across.
Tarquinius reaches Lucretia’s bed and sings an aria (his
only aria in the opera), a molto tranquillo expression of a
romantic aspiration; only the drum beats, brought forward
from the Male Chorus’s spoken recitative, belying his calm,
Orestes-fashion. The melodic line of the aria is composed
almost wholly of minor thirds and major sixths: Tarquinius
“ subject to Lucretia” . This leads into an agitated version of
the lullaby, with Tarquinius transforming the sleepy alto
flute tune into an urgent “ wake up, wake up, Lucretia”
against which the Female Chorus contradicts him in her line
from the lullaby.
When Lucretia wakes, a new tone colour, as well as a new
tempo, announces the conflict— the cor anglais’ weaving
minor thirds against repeated brassed horn notes. The timpani
beats, which have been important in presaging the climax,
explode with Tarquinius’s physical passion and diminished
fourths dominate the melodic intervals in the orchestra. The
words are full of echoes and predictions: Lucretia asks, “ Is
this is the Prince of Rome?” and Tarquinius, once “ subject to
Lucretia” , now replies, “ I am your prince” ; Tarquinius cries,
“ Too late, Lucretia, too late” , and we remember this when
Collatinus later sings, “ Too late, Junius, too late” — a hint of
the theme of fate and inevitability that is sometimes indicated
in the opera— Duncan wrote “Just as fertility or life is
devoured by death, so is spirit defiled by Fate. Lucretia is, to
my mind, the symbol of the former, Tarquinius the embodi­
ment of the latter.” I find that this theme makes the Christian
exposition at the end of the opera irrelevant— the concept of
fate excludes the concept of sin— and also helps to make
THE R AP E OF L U G R E T I A 39

Tarquinius a less consistent character than if the opera came

down decisively either on the side of sin and redemption or
of fate (the triumph of circumstances over conscience).
The duet becomes an ensemble as the Male and Female
Choruses unite in urging, “ Go, Tarquinius!” and the scene
ends with the third transformation of Ex. 14:
See how the rampant centaur mounts the sky,
And serves the sun, with all its seeds of stars,
Now the great river underneath the ground,
Flows through Lucretia, and Tarquinius is drowned.
The reason for Lucretia’s submission is explicit in Obey and
Shakespeare— Tarquinius threatened to kill Lucretia and
“ some rascal groom” and pretend to Collatinus that he had
killed Lucretia in her slave’s embrace. This point is not made
in the opera, unless we are meant to read it into Tarquinius’s
gesture with the sword. Without it, “ The Seduction of
Lucretia” becomes a real alternative, which would, of course,
admit sin alongside fate: Lucretia’s sin. The only textural
grounds for suspecting that Lucretia was ultimately a willing
victim is in the last scene; when she tells Collatinus that
Tarquinius “ took his peace from me and tore thefabric of our
love” , the orchestra recalls Tarquinius’s accusation: “ Yet the
linnet in your eyes lifts with desire, And the cherries of your
lips are wet with wanting.” Were they? And does “ deny” —
the most prominent word in Lucretia’s answer— imply con­
tradiction (of a lie) or repudiation (of the truth) ?
The interlude is a set of “ chorale variations” ; the Male
and Female Choruses, with the horn, have a hymn to the
Virgin against a stormy canonic accompaniment. The melodic
line of the hymn is, like the first hymn of the opera, derived
chiefly from the significant intervals of the opera— the minor
third and diminished fourth. Each variation relaxes the ten­
sion, as we move further away in time from the actual rape,
and the movement subsides into the second scene, “ Lucretia’s
40 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B RI T T E N

home flooded with the early sun” , with Bianca and Lucia
arranging flowers. The scenes of women’s mundane occupa­
tions— spinning, linen-folding, flower-arranging— contain the
most resplendent music in the opera. No other state or activity
is given such securely happy radiance of expression. This is
a joyful relief after the tension of the night scene, and es­
tablishes again the norm of behaviour from which the prin­
cipal characters deviate. The music is coloured predictably
by the harp and abounds in the thirds characteristic of
Lucretia. Lucretia’s entry, by replacing aria with recitative,
also replaces the bright harp and strings with the duller piano
tone, and Lucretia’s own phrases in an unusually low and
restricted register answer the free, expansive arpeggios that
Lucia and Bianca carry over from the preceding music.
From this point to the end of the passacaglia the music is
continuously funereal— there are, in fact, three deaths, each
separately mourned : the death of Lucretia’s innocence, the
death of her marriage, and the death of her body. Lucretia is
a very contrived opera. The continuous use of the two motifs,
for example, at times comes near to clogging the musical
language with signposts to hidden significance, somewhat as
the perpetual capitals and italics of eighteenth-century litera­
ture hinder the twentieth-century reader. There are passages,
however, and this triple funeral is one, where we are grateful
for the richness and detail of the working out.
Lucretia’s essentially passionate nature turns to hysteria
when she is offered orchids. In her outburst she sends a mes­
sage to Collatinus :
Tell the messenger to take my love. Yes! Give my love to
the messenger, Give my love to the stable boy, and the
coachman too. And hurry, hurry, For all men love the
chaste Lucretia . . .
When Lucia goes out to send for Collatinus, the orchestra
reminds us of the rape phrase and Lucretia sings a mourning
THE R A P E OF L U G R E T I A 41

aria while she arranges the orchids into a wreath. This is the
funeral of her innocence and, to mark the contrast, Bianca
sings an aria recalling Lucretia’s childhood, with the Lucretia
motif transformed into a scherzando accompaniment.
Collatinus arrives— too late to be intercepted by Bianca’s
countermand of the summons; and Lucretia meets him— it
is the first time in the opera that we see them together—
while the orchestra plays a second dirge, a lament for the
death of their marriage :

Their reunion leads, through an intense, beautiful and impas­

sioned dialogue, to Lucretia’s inevitable suicide*— inevitable
for her because of her shame which feels like sin and demands
atonement, inevitable in the eyes of the characters on stage
because “ to love as [they] loved was to be Never but as
moiety” and when Lucretia’s chastity was despoiled, her
marriage and even her life had to end; inevitable for the
audience because they have already seen the wreath and
heard the funeral march.
There follows the third funeral— an actual funeral march
which is a passacaglia based on a theme closely derived from
the “ framing hymn” of the Male and Female Choruses. The
* In the only production I have seen of this, Lucretia stabs herself with
Junius’s sword, which seems an excellent idea— he is the instrument of
the tragedy throughout.
 42 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

Choruses have not taken part in the scene up to this point—

an unusually long absence from the score— as if they used up
their powers in willing the tragedy not to take place, and can
only watch the second tragedy, exhausted of comment, until
they gather up the themes of the opera in their final passage.
The passacaglia gradually introduces all the living characters
(except Tarquinius— and he is omitted not only for practical
reasons; like Essex towards the end of Gloriarla, he is with­
drawn from a prominence which might contest the central
role) in characteristic lines : Collatinus mourning over
Lucretia’s body (“ So brief is beauty— is this it all?” ), Junius
already haranguing the crowd from the window (“ Romans,
arise, see what the Etruscans have done” ), Lucia and Bianca
share an entry in “ feminine” thirds (“ Now place the wreath
about her head . . .” ). The Female Chorus enters the en­
semble next, very brilliantly above the accumulating melodic
lines, and finally the Male Chorus dominates the ensemble.
Through the various strands of the voice parts the bass theme
is given some key verbal meanings— the scale passage is
identified with “ So brief is beauty” ; the rising third with the
question “ is this it all?” and the falling third with “ it is all” :
ex. 18

So brief___ is beau-ty ! Is this it all? It is all!

The passacaglia, then, gathers together the pagan tragedy,

musically, poetically and dramatically. At the climax the
voices sing in unison moving towards the question and answer
quoted above. The scale is extended up through the orchestra
(“ beauty” becoming less “ brief” ?) and the Female Chorus
sings, accompanied only by the “ question” phrase, a ques­
tioning passage : “ Is all this suffering and pain, is this in vain ?”
This is answered in a splendid arioso by the Male Chorus
where the melodic line gradually incorporates all the signi­
THE R AP E OF L U G R E T I A 43

ficant motifs, culminating in the “ answer” when Christ’s for­

giveness is mentioned, from which point to the end the fall­
ing third— the answer— dominates the orchestral writing. The
Male and Female Choruses sing their hymn for the last time.
It seems to me that the Male Chorus’s answer—
It is not all . . .
Though our nature’s still as frail
And we still fall
and that great crowd’s no less along that road,
endless and uphill.
For now He bears our sin
and does not fall,
and He carrying all turns round
stoned with our doubt
and then forgives us all . . .
— while immensely right-feeling in performance, is somewhat
irrelevant to the drama when examined in cold blood. It is
about sin: now the only sin we have indisputably met with
in the opera is on the part of Junius and Tarquinius; surely
the least pressing need at this stage in the drama is a desire
for Junius or Tarquinius to be forgiven. It is about forgive­
ness : if, as seems more reasonable dramatically, it intends to
say that Christian forgiveness would have rendered Lucretia’s
suicide unnecessary, then we have to remember that Lucretia
has not sinned in a Christian sense, so no forgiveness is neces­
sary. In any case, Lucretia’s death, a Stoic death, is unneces­
sary even in her own age after Collatinus, anachronistically
enlightened, has forgiven “ what Lucretia has given” . It is
here that the ambivalence of the opera’s motivation is most
unsatisfactory— whether it is about the workings of fate in a
pagan society or about the operation of Grace among re­
deemed men and women.
The opera is dominated structurally and dramatically by
its use of the two motifs. I haven’t mentioned more than a
44 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

few key uses of these because there are more bars in the opera
that have some derivation from them, than bars that have
not. Most of the uses are conspicuous, easily perceptible by
an audience which has not seen the work before. These fulfil
a potent dramatic purpose, as when in the first scene Lucretia’s
name— and motif—is bandied about until Junius’s outburst
seems both inevitable and easily comprehensible. Just as
clearly Tarquinius’s theme provides a heavy and ominous
accompaniment to the “ Good night” ensemble. The verbal
meanings progressively attached to the three phrases of the
passacaglia bass have already been shown. It is a very verbal
opera. There is no single piece of instrumental music that
does not later become part of a vocal one (the lullaby in Act
II, Scene i and the “ funeral” music when Lucretia meets
Collatinus in the last scene hold their independence for longer
than any others). The motif system seems in this opera to be
an extension of this wordyness : to drive home the metaphor
of the horse and the river, in Tarquinius’s Ride, the flute and
viola shout “ Lucretia” in every bar; when Collatinus asks
Bianca if Tarquinius has been to his house, she tells him so
in the notes she sings although she refuses to do so in words.
They are melodic motifs— Lucretia’s is almost a tune— and
are developed melodically for the most part, which makes
their perception easier. Indeed, unless they are perceptible to
the audience which has not seen the score, they are irrelevant
to the audience which is likely to be watching the opera
(though not to the composer) ; from this point of view Britten’s
use of them is an unqualified success.
But the most exciting aspect of the opera is the vast range
of instrumental sonorities resulting from the chamber forces.
We are far more aware of the orchestra in this opera— with
its absence of instrumental passages— than in many a full-
scale work, including Peter Grimes. The individual colouring
of each passage is usually created by the use of even smaller
ensembles from the group. This allows the unusual sounds
THE R AP E OF L U G R E T I A 45

produced by the alto flute, bass clarinet, and high bassoon

register, for example, to be readily appreciated. The cor
anglais gradually emerges from the “ middle funeral” move­
ment to confront Lucretia (in an unaccompanied duet with
her) with the very voice of her sorrow. The viola and cello
duet with the flute, later clarinet, in the flower scene creates
a sound as brilliant as the sunlight which is dominating the
stage. The harp is the most versatile member of the ensemble :
its music ranges from the chirping cricket in the oppressive
heat in the first scene to the enchanting spinning ensemble.
There is nothing groping or experimental in Britten’s use
of the medium he devised for Lucretia ; we do not even feel it
to be a limitation : it is rather a revelation of the added scope
such a refinement of style and means brings to the interpreta­
tion of the drama.
 Chapter three

Albert Herring
 Libretto by Eric Crozier from a short story, Le Rosier de
Madame Husson (1888), by Maupassant.
First performed Glyndebourne, June 1947.

CHARACTERS
lady billows , an elderly autocrat Joan Cross, soprano
Florence pike , her housekeeper and
companion Gladys Parr, contralto
miss Wordsworth , schoolmistress Margaret Ritchie, soprano
MR gedge , the Vicar William Parsons, baritone
MR upfold , the Mayor Roy Ashton, tenor
SUPERINTENDENT BUDD, police Super- ( Norman Lumsden, bass
intendent \ Bruce Clark
Frederick Sharp, baritone
siD, a butcher’s shophand <
Denis Dowling
albert herring , from the green­
grocer’s Peter Pears, tenor
Nancy Evans, mezzo-
nancy , from the bakery
{ soprano
Joan Gray
Betsy de la Porte,
MRS herring , Albert’s mother

EMMIE
{ mezzo-soprano
Catherine Lawson
Lesley Duff, soprano
( Anne Sharp, soprano
CIS > village children
\ Elisabeth Parry
HARRY David Spenser, treble

Conductors: Benjamin Britten, Ivan Clayton

Producer: Frederick Ashton
Scenery and Costumes: John Piper
SYNOPSIS

The story takes place at Loxford, a small market town in

East Suffolk, during April and May of 1900.

act i, scene 1: Lady Billows’s house. Lady Billows is

anxious to revive the May Day celebrations she remembers
from her childhood, and to raise the moral standards of the
village. She summons a Committee to elect a May Queen.
None of the suggested candidates stands up to the scrutiny of
Florence Pike, her housekeeper. In desperation Superinten­
dent Budd proposes a May King in the person of Albert
Herring, a slightly simple but undeniably virtuous village
youth.

scene 2 : In their greengrocery store, Albert and his mother

are informed of the celebrations— and the £25 prize. Albert
attempts rebellion, but is firmly quelled by his mother.

act 11, scene 1: Inside a marquee. In the last-minute

preparations for the festival Sid and Nancy, Albert’s friends,
bent on promoting his emancipation, put rum in Albert’s
lemonade. The welcome ode, speeches, and toast go more or
less as planned. Albert is thoroughly miserable until he has
tasted the lemonade— which cheers him considerably !

scene 2 : Albert returns home to the shop after the Festival,

having enjoyed himself. His restless desires are rekindled when
he overhears Sid and Nancy discussing him in the street. He
remembers his prize money and decides by the toss of a coin
to go out in search of adventure. Mrs Herring returns and,
thinking Albert is already asleep, retires to bed.
50 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

a c t hi: The shop, the following day. Albert has disappeared

and various amateur search parties are out in pursuit. His
orange-blossom crown is brought in, battered and bespat­
tered, and taking this as the embodiment of Albert, the com­
pany assemble around it and sing a tragic-comic lament.
Albert enters and their grief changes to an unfriendly inquisi­
tion. Albert reveals “ a general sample55 of his debauchery (“ it
wasn’t much fun55) and with growing confidence sends his
neighbours about their business.
 Albert Herring was first performed in June 1947, Britten’s
second chamber opera. It deals as lightly with the theme of
chastity as Lucretia dealt tragically. The libretto derives from
a short story by Maupassant, Le Rosier de Madame Husson,
which is a grim tale in the original version. In Albert Herring
it has been transformed into an opera which is not only comic
but funny. And there is inevitably some uneasiness in the
transformation, for it is difficult to find a consistent dramatic
purpose in Albert Herring. It veers between caricature and
comedy, and while the caricature roles are for the most part
quite brilliantly presented, we are left with an unsatisfying
human comedy which is perhaps necessarily inconclusive but
also disturbingly inconsistent. Sid’s seductive picture, for ex­
ample, of the pleasures of love (“ Girl’s mean Spring six days
a week” ) is one of the high points in the opera— as music and
as musical characterisation— but this glowing evocation is
irrelevant to the freedom that Albert goes after in his “ night
that was a nightmare example of drunkenness, dirt and
worse” , and nothing in his “ liberated” character in the last
scene leads us to imagine that he could ever achieve it. The
puritan confusion which enabled the inhabitants of Loxford
to identify love and drunkenness as being sins of a kind seems
also to have confused the composer and librettist.
Albert is not an easy character to portray. As usual, Britten
gives him a musical character which is easier to understand—
and like— than his verbal character. Is he really emancipated
at the end of the opera? Was it worth the small orgy and,
perhaps more important, the Threnody, to emerge as the
Albert of the last scene ? Only in terms of his musical character
can we answer unequivocally yes— in terms of the sequence
of numbers, “ It seems as clear as clear can be” (Ex. 21), “ The
tide will turn, the sun will set” (Ex. 24) and “ And I’m more
52 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

than grateful to you all” (Ex. 26). In this last confident,

capable passage Albert has achieved self-possession— literally,
he now “ possesses” himself. But how this resulted from the
events of the previous night it is difficult to guess.
The first scene is the most satisfying in the opera. Dealing
only with the caricature characters, it has a balance and
consistency which is lacking in the rest of the opera, as well
as containing most of the intrinsically musical humour— in
contrast to verbal or musically allusive humour which is
rampant elsewhere. It opens with a brisk, perpetual-motion
orchestral pattern, which includes semitone “ sighing” phrases
without impeding the movement and incorporates Florence’s
aria as well as her conversation with Lady Billows. It extends
until the arrival of the Committee. Comic opera tends to
generate extended instrumental forms : the music has to de­
pict and accompany situations rather than the protagonists’
introspections. Whether it is to depict a scene, as this opening
section portrays the incessant activity urged on Florence Pike,
or to accompany a situation, like the waltz which points the
performing-animal aspect of the Committee members’ re­
ports, the instrumental music generally has to bind together
comparatively undeveloped vocal lines, and establish the
musical dimension of the scene.
The disorganised inanities of the arriving Committee mem­
bers are delivered in recitative (over piano chords— the only
occasions on which the accompaniment deviates from this are
significant : the clock chiming the half-hour, which provokes
conventional reactions from the Superintendent and the
Mayor— it returns, incidentally, at the crisis of the opera,
Albert’s decision to break loose at the end of the second act—
the flowing arpeggios which accompany Miss Wordsworth’s
lyrical excesses, and the solemn octaves which give indisput­
able authority to “ In like a lion, out like a lamb” ). The
second musical unit begins with the entry of Lady Billows:
organisation rears its formidable head, and this change is
A L B E R T H E R R I NG 53

reflected in the form of the music. The material is threefold—

the double-dotted slow march, the posture of authority; the
repeated chords, submissive and unanimous reaction; and the
fugue— the cause of bringing the two former ideas together is
reflected in its purposeful, busy, and contrived effect. These
impressions are confirmed when the march returns to accom­
pany the “ Good mornings” , the repeated chords, the
agenda—
This is the tenth of April,
The day your Ladyship planned
For our second and final meeting—
We’re here to see how we stand . . .
and the fugue (complete with cadential trill) becomes “ We’ve
made our own investigations” , conveying the self-importance
of the singers and of the procedural routine of the meeting.
Lady Billows’s forceful brand of lyricism provides some
contrast to this, though in her aria “ May Queen, May Queen”
the orchestra continues to refer to the investigations in a
scherzando version of the fugue subject. The recitativo quasi
ballata which follows is a substantial ensemble, with sugges­
tions proposed to a confident, major-key phrase, invariably
refuted by Florence with a change to the minor and energetic­
ally turned down by Lady Billows :
ex. 19
Miss W ordsworth
adlib . . ^ t .
J 7 J J>p-ILp
Of all the pu-pils from the school, it gives me p a r-ti - cu-lar
54 THE O PERA S OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

Allegro
F lorence

When all the suggestions are exhausted, the first phrase, now
in the minor, becomes a lament, for Miss Wordsworth, the
Mayor, the Vicar, and Superintendent Budd. It is interrupted
by a genuinely sad and angry aria for Lady Billows which
lifts her momentarily out of the caricature class, to a place
among the real people of the opera. It is amusing, of course,
because its energy is disproportionate to Florence’s insubstan­
tial allegations, but it is none the less moving, as a deeply felt,
if misguided, reaction. The Threnody in the last act is a
similar case— it is, quite simply, funny to see the cast assemble
round the battered orange-blossom crown and treat it as if it
were a corpse. But their inflated emotions are real enough to
them and are accorded sympathetic musical expression which,
because their grief is disproportionate, if not inappropriate,
makes for a musical number which is dramatically dispro­
portionate and possibly dramatically inappropriate, too.
Albert Herring is proposed as May King: the phrase in
which the amazed Committee react to the outrageous sug­
gestion becomes, freely varied, the basis of the Superinten­
dent’s short air “ Albert Herring’s clean as new-mown hay” .
Lady Billows is not impressed and casts desperately around
for alternatives, but Florence’s minor-key version of Ex. 19
(“ Country virgins, if there be such, think too little and see
too much” ) has a damning finality that Lady Billows cannot
overcome; she is defeated by her own vigilance, which has
doubtless schooled Florence into an attitude of universal
suspicion. She is, however, reluctant to abandon the festival
A L B E R T H ERRI NG 55

and turns to the Vicar, less for moral enlightenment, more

for reassurance, from the only member of the Committee of
comparable social status, that she will not be making a fool
of herself if she awards the prize to Albert. It is the occasion
of an enchanting short air for the Vicar, depicting his hesitant
lyricism. Now we can make a contrast between this and Miss
Wordsworth’s too-fluent, eager lyrical style : at the beginning
of the scene these two were aligned against the considerably
less articulate Mayor and Budd. The detailed characterisa­
tion in the brief arias is particularly important because in the
ensembles in this scene the characters either sing the same
words or the same notes : it is the unanimity of their approach
to the investigations or reaction to the creation of a May King
that is pertinent.
In the face of the inescapable fact of Albert’s virtue, Lady
Billows capitulates and her enthusiasm for the idea now equals
her previous distaste: “ Right! We’ll have him! May King!
That’ll teach the girls a lesson!” This is the starting-point for
the finale: a rousing fugue (the head of the subject,

ex. 20

M ay King ! M ay King !

being the same phrase which opened Lady Billow’s earlier,

vehemently nostalgic aria “ May Queen” ) and a concerto­
like coda with extravagantly brilliant phrases for Lady Billows
set against meek, iffortissimo, responses by the Committee. It
dissolves into the interlude which is underlaid by the bounc­
ing ball rhythm— we realise that this is what is being repre­
sented at the opening of the next scene.
This scene attempts to portray the inhibited Albert—
Albert in need of rescue. He is therefore shown in contrast to
the entirely spontaneous though unattractive children and
the hedonistic Sid and Nancy— a very sound picture of normal
love among the misfits and exaggerations of the rest of the
56 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

characters. More weighty evidence on the side of the rescuers

is revealed when Mrs Herring appears. And the crowning
absurdity of Lady Billows’s procession shows Albert out­
numbered and outraged— he is sure of our sympathy from
this point onwards. The central statement of his musical
character is :
ex . 21
Lento e tranquillo
Tpp

91 1 1 - 1 r
It
- i
seems as
J

clear as
J 1 J

clear can
1
r
be
f
that
r f-i
Sid’s i - deas

= = \
«Ha =
- i --------------------------- £
Strings MS»
r*f f j rJ jsl fs1 %l fs

This is the “ simple” Albert, harmonically pallid in com­

parison with the rich chord change suggested by “ Sid’s ideas”
and rhythmically limited after:
ex . 22
>/

Girls mean___ Spring six____ days a week___ and twice on___ Sun - days.

Strings T~F rrr^ rT f * f T

m
! J J- i j
A L B E R T HER RI NG 57

Yet with enough potential— he does, after all, realise his

predicament, and this is a very beautiful and passionate aria
— to make his development likely and worthwhile. It is
typical of Albert’s lot that this soliloquy is twice interrupted.
The procession has the immediate effect of jerking Albert out
of his predominantly scale-wise melodic intervals: “ Concerns
me, do you say!” leaps a major sixth and “ What! M e?” an
octave. The procession is stylised, like the Committee sugges­
tions and resolution in the first scene, and the festival song
and toast in the next act— a rigid marziale utterance by Lady
Billows— utterly ridiculous in content and context. When
“ Mum” is won over by the £25 prize, Albert is indeed a
hunted man.
Act II, Scene 1 is farce— it is the situation which is para­
mount. The characters are all at their most exaggerated and
the drama relies heavily on allusive rather than intrinsic
humour. It is all very funny— the nightmare rehearsal, the
quotation from Tristan, the speeches— but it contributes
nothing to the development of the characters and little to the
plot. It is not the turning-point for Albert— that comes in the
following scene. The act opens with a horn fanfare, extending
the “ May King” phrase of Ex. 20, set against restless, bustling
semiquaver movement; this becomes identified with the pre­
parations for the festival when it forms part of Florence’s aria
“ For three precious weeks . . .” Miss Wordsworth rehearses
the “ festive song” . The episode is unworthy of her— she is,
admittedly, sillier than Ellen Orford, and less perceptive than
the Governess, but she is basically of the same mould and is
in some way betrayed by this scene. The children, too, are a
miscalculation. Children cannot be caricatured graphically,
and this attempt to distort them musically is embarrassing—
particularly among the many splendid operatic children Brit­
ten has created.
The cast assembles to fragments of their earlier music. Sid
pours rum into Albert’s glass accompanied by a reference to
58 T HE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

the Love Potion from Tristan. The speeches are delivered in

characteristic manner— Lady Billows’s didactic patriotism,
the Mayor’s civic trivia, Miss Wordsworth’s exuberant inno­
cence and Superintendent Budd’s inefficient bumbling (this
latter accompanied by an energetic double bass solo). Albert’s
agonised embarrassment contrasts with the varied brands of
confidence exhibited in the speeches :

ex . 23

Strings PP
„1 i— TJJ2 i ^ s m r m

The toast follows, another organised number, the musical

process reflecting the self-consciousness of the characters sing­
ing, and when Albert drinks his fortified lemonade the Tristan
chord runs riot through the orchestra and recurs irreverently
to accompany his hiccups.
The music of the toast and the mood of festive euphoria
continue into the interlude till it subsides in a lovely medita­
tion for alto flute and bass clarinet— apparently depicting the
inward-looking Albert we see at the end of the next scene.
But when this music returns in Scene 2 it is to accompany his
clowning: “ we’ll light the gas, With enormous care not to
break the mantle, Set fire to the shop or cause a scandal !”
A L B E R T HER RI NG 59

Albert is already considerably more self-confident than in Act

I, and he is happy enough until he overhears Sid and Nancy’s
meeting in the street. His regret turns first to bitterness, next
to this moving statement:

ex . 24
animato
A lbert , ^ ,

f r f r r n Vr.J 1 ) H U ' , r n * - 3 =
The tide will turn, the sun will set, . while I stand here and he - si - tate—

The high seriousness of this passage is questionable characteri­

sation : anyone capable of expressing his thoughts through it
should not need emancipation by orgy. Albert’s musical
character is at times on a different plane from his dramatic
character— perhaps necessarily here, for he has to provide a
musical climax for the scene that will efface the memory of
Sid and Nancy’s passionate duets. The alto flute and bass
clarinet music returns to see Mrs Herring safely into bed and
to close the scene on the catalystic night.
The third act continues to illustrate the ridiculous elements
in Loxford daily life. And for the first time Albert is not in­
cluded in the ridicule. The introduction evokes the confusion
of the search in rising and falling arpeggio shapes pervaded
by the |J* J J J>| rhythm, first announced on the side drum.
This pattern continues intermittently in the scene until the
Threnody, and returns, when Albert appears, for the chorus
“ Tearing the town from its regular labours” . The disorganised
nature of the search is indicated by a series of interrupted
glimpses of the search parties, from the “ Peewit Patrol” to
the “ Wickham Market Militia” . Nancy and Mrs Herring are
fixed points against the disrupting background activity.
Nancy’s remorse and Mrs Herring’s grief are genuine, if
sentimental, and are communicated in a dispassionate chro­
maticism which registers their distress without enlisting a
strenuous sympathy from the audience :
6o THE O PERA S OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

EX. 25

The procession which brings in the orange-blossom crown

(“ . . . on a tray covered with a white cloth . . . lying there
— crushed and muddied” ) parallels Lady Billows’s procession
in Act I, Scene 2. In contrast to the disorganised procedure
of the search parties (and consistent with the superfluous
formalities of the Committee scene, the announcing of the
award of the prize to Albert, the festival song and toast), it
is predictable that the mass mourning over the “ wreath” and
A L B E R T HER RI NG 6l

its implications should take place in a formal number, the

Threnody— a choral lament over a ground bass with solo
verses for each character, culminating in the simultaneous
statement of all the solos. It is not an easy number to absorb
into the opera. It balances on a knife-edge of taste and it is a
matter of opinion as to whether it dangerously inclines to­
wards being too funny about death or being too tragic for
both the ludicrous circumstances and the light-hearted mood
of the rest of the opera. The problematic factor is its length
(dictated to a large extent by the form: each of the nine
soloists must have a solo verse) which forces the listener to
come to a decision about it. It is perhaps justified by being
dramatically true: this is the way these characters would
behave, their grief would be eloquent and disproportionate
and provoked by insufficient evidence. But until this point in
the opera they have for the most part been treated as carica­
tures, and deprived of the sort of rounded portrayal which
would entitle them to pathos.
It breaks up, anyway, in unambiguous comedy— the fall­
ing minor ninths of “ and die so young” are turned into a
rising major ninth for the astonished cry of “ Albert?” as he
reappears. It is splendid comedy, too, when they continue the
chordal style of the Threnody into their furious and un­
welcoming
Where have you come from ?
Where have you been ?
Wrecking the whole of our daily routine ?

Albert is at first silenced by their vehemence but eventually

narrates a “ general sample” of his experiments— in an ex­
perimental style, too, for Albert, though a restless and uneasy
one.
These experiences are not assimilated— or perhaps it is not
the night’s adventures but the act of speaking his mind to the
assembled company that is the turning-point— until the line :
62 THE O P E R A S OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

EX. 26
Amabile

And I’ m more than grateful to you all for kind-ly pro - v i - ding the where with - al !

This is the sequel to Ex. 21 and Ex. 24; Albert’s musical

characterisation is completed when it has been stated not
once but three times (ending always on a different chord),
undisturbed by the abuse of all except Sid and Nancy. The
minor characters who swelled in a nightmarish fantasy to
dominate the stage during the Threnody now diminish to
silhouettes and are dismissed by Albert— who, we now feel,
will be able to keep them in their proper place. But this is all.
He is as far removed as ever from the romantic ideal that
prompted his earlier dreams and eventual escape. O f course,
this, like the Threnody, is real life : but reality is not a satisfy­
ing note on which to end a period satire.
 Chapterfour

The Little Sweep

 Libretto by Eric Crozier.
First performed Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh, 1949.

CHARACTERS
( Norman Lumsden, bass
black bob , the sweepmaster
\ John Highcock
( Max Worthley, tenor
clem, his assistant
\ Andrew Gold
John Moules, treble
Sam, their sweepboy

miss BAGGOTT, the housekeeper {Alan Woolston

( Gladys Parr, contralto
\ Anne Wood
( Elisabeth Parry, soprano
rowan , the nursery maid
\ Pamela Woolmore
JULIET BROOK Anne Sharp, soprano
( Bruce Hines, treble
GAY BROOK
► the children \ Michael Nicholls
( Monica Garrod, soprano
SOPHIE BROOK
\ je a n Galton
Peter Cousins, treble
JOHNNIE CROME

HUGH CROME ► their cousins {Brian Cole

( Ralph Canham, treble
\ Clive Wyatt
TINA CROME ( Mavis Gardiner, soprano
\ Shirley Eaton

Conductors: Norman del Mar, Trevor Harvey

Producers: Basil Coleman, Stuart Burge
Scenery and Costumes: John Lewis
SYNPOSIS

Black Bob and Clem, chimney-sweeps, arrive at Iken Hall

with their new sweepboy, Sam. The three children who live
at Iken, Juliet, Gay, and Sophie, and their three cousins who
are staying with them, Johnnie, Hugh, and Tina, are playing
hide-and-seek. They hear Sam’s cries for help when he is
stuck in the nursery chimney and succeed in pulling him
down again. They are concerned at his plight and in order to
save him from his masters they lay a false trail of sooty foot­
prints leading to the window, and hide Sam in their toy
cupboard. Black Bob, Clem, and the housekeeper, Miss Bag-
gott, are deceived and set off in pursuit of the false trail.
Rowan, the nursery maid, thinking that Sam is indeed being
pursued, expresses her pity for him, and the children take
advantage of these emotions which they overhear to present
her with the fait accompli of the rescued Sam. They bath him
and plan to send him back to his parents, who live near the
cousins’ home.
Miss Baggott returns sooner than expected and all but
discovers Sam; Juliet, however, creates a diversion by pre­
tending to faint. The next morning Sam is hidden in the trunk
ready to be taken home with the departing cousins. There
is nearly a last-minute tragedy when the coachman and the
gardener, arriving to remove the trunk, declare it is too heavy
to be moved, and must be unpacked ! The children, however,
offer to help, and Sam is borne away to safety.
 The Little Sweep was first performed in June 1949 as the cul­
mination of the entertainment Let's Make an Opera, by Eric
Crozier. This work, designed for children and with a large
proportion of child singers, takes its place both among the
considerable volume of children’s music Britten has written,
and, rather surprisingly with complete consistency among
his operas for adults. The instrumental forces are smaller than
in the preceding chamber operas— string quartet, piano duet,
and percussion. They are somewhat extended by the vast
choir formed by the audience, which is rehearsed in the earlier
part of the entertainment and is responsible for the introduc­
tion, interludes, and finale of the actual opera. The work is,
then, a very involving experience, and although it has no
pretensions to be didactic, no one can emerge from it without
having a clearer idea of the raw material of opera and indeed
of music itself.
Like most of Britten’s operas, it is concerned with suffering
and oppression. The villain— Black Bob— is all the more vil­
lainous for being briefly sketched: the more fully Britten
portrays evil, the more sympathetic it usually becomes— this
happens with Tarquinius and Claggart and has begun to
happen before the opera begins with Peter Grimes. There are
no concessions to the young performers and audience in the
portrayal of the terrible facts of child chimney-sweeps. The
brutality is not implied, it is demonstrated. However, it is
shown to come only tangentially into contact with the child­
ren’s world (I am not including Sam in their world: he is
far too experienced to be counted as a child) and it is van­
quished by their gaiety and resourcefulness. The children
have their own domestic villain, Miss Baggott— she has some
very sadistic lines— but she holds no terror because she is
familiar, and leaves no uneasiness because she becomes a
comic character.
THE L I T T L E SWEEP 67

The children are not direct witnesses of brutality, but they

are brought face to face with suffering. This is reflected in
the scope of their music, which contains, apart from the ex­
uberant Shanty and Marching song, the range of grief ex­
pressed in the ensembles: “ Is he wounded? Please forgive
us” — their spontaneous distress when Sam falls down the
chimney; the very much more detached and philosophical “ O
why do you weep through the working day” — where the
children actually put themselves in Sam’s place and make his
answers for him; and the stylised imitation of grief, “ Poor
Juliet’s ill! Look how she’s lying” . This range is further ex­
tended by Rowan’s music : she is the adult mouthpiece of the
children and has all their responsiveness and sensibility with,
in addition, the power to act on it.
The first number, which involves the audience, Black Bob,
and Clem, is “ The Sweep’s Song” — the opening cry of
ex. 27

Sweep !_

introduces immediately the rasp of physical cruelty, and is

followed by a forward-moving 4 tune. All of Britten’s operas
have a satisfying proportion of “ take home” tunes and the
works involving children are particularly abundant in these.
Naturally the audience songs contain material which it is easy
to memorise. There is scarcely an aria in the whole of this
opera and very little solo music; the audience songs provide
instead the melodic climaxes.
Most of the numbers are ensembles. In the next, we are
shown three inflexible adults striking characteristic attitudes,
in contrast with which Rowan appears an infinitely more real
person, and in consequence has a more developed musical
style through which to express her maturity. Black Bob and
68 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B RI T T E N

Clem are examples of the “ we have always done it this way”

motivation (exactly the same force which brings about the
tragedy in Billy Budd)—

Chimney-sweepers must ’ave boys,

Same as poachers must ’ave ferrets.
Brushes, rods and such like toys
Can’t compete with human merits.

Miss Baggott’s operatic antecedents are geographically nearer

— Mrs Sedley {Peter Grimes) and Florence Pike {AlbertHerring).
The duet which follows, “ Now little white boy” , over a lash­
ing ground bass not so very far removed from the viola theme
of Interlude IV in Peter Grimes, gives full expression to the
sadism of the sweeps. At the end of the duet Sam is up the
chimney and an instrumental reference to Rowan’s pitying
line in the previous quartet makes its poignant comment.
The children are introduced vocally off-stage in a game of
hide-and-seek: this is interrupted by Sam’s cries— he is stuck
in the chimney— and they pull him down while they sing a
Shanty. His grief and theirs is expressed in traditionally
chromatic language:

ex. 28

Please don’t send me up a - gain !

We won’t give you up a - gain !

They hide Sam in their toy cupboard after leaving

Sooty tracks upon the sheet,
Sooty marks of sooty feet,
THE L I T T L E SWEEP 69
Soot upon the window seat
Make our evidence complete.

This is amusingly parodied by Miss Baggott, Clem, and Bob

(cruelty is less frightening when it can be outwitted), who are
deceived by the false trail and hurry in pursuit to a vigorous
and bloodthirsty trio: “ Wait until we catch him, We’ll whip
him till he howls!”
Again Rowan is shown to be more fully human, as well as
humanitarian, in contrast to the slightly caricatured villains.
She has a sophisticated accompanied recitative, “ Run, poor
sweepboy” , which is not less moving for depicting an escape
that Sam has not made. The children identify themselves
with Rowan when they interrupt her in similar style and
organise her sympathy into practical help with “ Sammy’s
Bath” — another audience song, which bridges the two
scenes.
The swinging hemiola rhythm of the Bath song is trans­
formed in the next ensemble into a pathetic statement of pain
that cannot be dealt with as easily as the soot: “ O why do
you weep through the working day” is the emotional climax
of the opera. It is a reasoned acknowledgement, almost an
acceptance, of suffering, more mature than the children’s first
indignant reaction; a statement which is continuously rel­
evant, at the beginning and at the end of the opera:

ex. 29
Andante mesto
70 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

The mood is quickly dissolved in action. Miss Baggott

returns (a parody of the pathetic semitones at “ Oh! my poor
feet !” — Britten ensures that the audience learns all the tricks !)
and attempts to open the toy cupboard in which Sam is
again hiding. Juliet saves the situation by a mock faint which
sets in motion the scene finale— a splendid passacaglia over
a rising scale with the pretended emotions of Rowan and the
children clearly differentiated from their normal styles
(Rowan’s line is almost colourless, the children’s deadpan
and lifeless) and Miss Baggott’s genuine flurry j'ust as plainly
in character.
The third audience song, “ The Night Song” , covers the
THE L I T T L E SWEEP 71

lapse of time between the close of the second scene and the
opening of the third : it is not connected directly with the plot
and its function is to evoke the night and provide relaxation
after the excitements of the second scene finale. This it does
in a lovely and expansive tune which gives the audience the
experience of taking part in building a big climax of sound
and letting it die away. The long, lyrical phrases of the
audience songs are especially welcome in contrast to the short
vocal lines of the children: Juliet’s aria “ Soon the coach will
carry you away” , which follows this, shows the short phrases
built into quite an extended solo for the proportions of this
work. The long phrases of the string quartet give it the illusion
of being a broader utterance.
After a comic altercation with the coachman and the
gardener (usually Black Bob and Clem, not too heavily dis­
guised, which removes, in an extra-dramatic way, any linger­
ing nightmares from the initial cruelty of the opera) the trunk
containing Sam is dispatched with the parting children.
Realism recedes as the finale is staged— for the fourth aud­
ience song, “ the whole cast has come quickly back on stage.
They improvise a coach with the trunk, rocking horse and a
chair or two. The Twins kneel, twirling parasoles, Sam rides
the horse and Tom flourishes a whip.” It is an effective way
of saying that art can be as artificial as you like; drama is not
less true for having its construction exposed.
Indeed, this is what the whole entertainment is about.
Participation is made easy in The Little Sweep, but it is in­
tended to be carried forward— as involvement— in our appre­
ciation of all Britten’s operas : all levels to be attempted !
 ChapterJive

B illy Budd
 Libretto by E. M. Forster and Eric Crozier from the story
of the same name (1891) by Herman Melville.
First performed Covent Garden, December 1951.

CHARACTERS
EDWARD FAIRFAX VERE, Captain of
H.M.S. Indomitable Peter Pears, tenor
billy budd, able seamen Theodore Uppman,
baritone
John cl aggart , the Master-at-Arms Frederick Dalberg, bass
MR redburn , the First Lieutenant Hervey Alan, baritone
MR flint , the Sailing Master Gervaint Evans, bass
baritone
MR Ratcliffe , the Second Lieutenant Michael Langdon, bass
red whiskers , an impressed man Anthony Marlowe, tenor
Donald , a sailor Bryan Drake, baritone
dansker , an old seaman Inia Te Wiata, bass
A NOVICE William McAlpine, tenor
squeak , a ship’s corporal David Tree, tenor
BOSUN Ronald Lewis, baritone
FIRST MATE Rhydderch Davies,
baritone
SECOND MATE Hubert Littlewood,
baritone
MAINTOP Emlyn Jones, tenor
novi ce ’ s FRIEND John Cameron, baritone
Arthur jones , an impressed man Alan Hobson, baritone
four midshipmen Brian Ettridge,"
Kenneth Nash, Iboys
Peter Spencer, f voices
Colin Waller, ,
CABIN BOY Peter Flynn, spoken
Conductor: Benjamin Britten
Producer: Basil Coleman
Designer: John Piper
Chorus Master: Douglas Robinson
SYNOPSIS

The story takes place on board H.M.S. Indomitable, a seventy-

four, during the French wars of 1797.

prologue : Captain Vere, as an old man looks back on his

life at sea and recalls with difficulty some confusing incident
from “ the summer of seventeen hundred and ninety seven”
which he feels to have had some spiritual impact on him.

act i, scene 1: Early morning on H.M.S. Indomitable, the

daily work goes forward. A boarding party returns from a
passing merchantman, The Rights 0’ Man; three men have
been impressed and they are brought before the officers. One
of them is Billy Budd, a young seaman of outstanding physical
presence and spiritual innocence. His only defect is an occa­
sional stammer. He arouses an ambiguous response from the
Master-at-Arms, John Claggart, who commends Billy’s vir­
tues to his superior officers, while ordering his corporal,
Squeak, to provoke Billy’s temper.

scene 2: Captain Vere’s cabin; evening, a week later. The

ship is approaching enemy waters and both the officers and
men are eager for action. The officers confess their fears of
mutiny— the revolts at the Spithead and the Nore have only
recently been concluded— and establish extra vigilance to
defeat it.

scene 3: The berth deck, the same evening. The men are
singing shanties. Billy discovers Squeak interfering with his
kit and attacks him, knocking him down just as Claggart
appears. Claggart again behaves ambiguously. He has
76 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B RI T T E N

Squeak— who was carrying out his orders— arrested, and

commends Billy :“ Handsomely done, my lad. And handsome
is as handsome did it, too.” Subsequently, in a soliloquy he
plans Billy’s destruction. He employs the Novice, whose
spirit has been broken by a brutal flogging and who will now
do anything to avoid another one, to attempt to bribe Billy
to lead a mutiny. The Novice unwillingly does this, but arouses
only Billy’s rage and his stammer.

act ii, scene i : The main deck and quarter-deck some days
later. The men are spoiling for battle and are continually
frustrated by a thick sea mist. Claggart begins to put his case
against Billy to Captain Vere, but is interrupted when a
French sail is sighted and the mist begins to lift. There are
exciting preparations and a shot is fired, but it falls short; the
wind drops and the mist returns to put an end to the chase.
Claggart comes to Vere again with his tale of Billy’s intended
mutiny. Vere refuses to believe him, but immediately arranges
a confrontation.

scene 2: Vere, in his cabin a few minutes later, is confident

of Billy’s innocence. Billy is brought in and protests his
loyalty. Claggart makes his accusation which renders Billy
speechless. His stammer chokes him and he hits out at Clag­
gart and strikes him dead. Vere summons his officers, realis­
ing only after he has acted that Billy is unalterably good and
that it will fall to him, Vere, to see that Billy is condemned.
He summons a drumhead court at which the officers, frus­
trated by the lack of guidance from Vere and directed by the
urgency of the situation in a time of war, condemn Billy to
death. Vere accepts their verdict and personally reveals it to
Billy.

3 : A bay of the gun deck, shortly before dawn the next

sc en e
morning. Billy is in irons; he is visited by Dansker and refuses
B I L L Y BUDD 77

to encourage the threatened mutiny. He blesses Captain Vere

and is hanged.

epilogue : Vere, as an old man, looking back to the incident,

remembers Billy’s blessing and is comforted.
Billy Budd was first performed in December 1951, the second
of Britten’s full-scale operas. The libretto is by E. M. Forster
and Eric Crozier, from the novel by Herman Melville. At
that time it must have seemed an enormous development
from its predecessors and it remains one of Britten’s biggest
operas in a number of senses. In comparison with the only
previous full opera, Peter Grimes, it is like hearing Gluck after
Lully: Grimes is episodic, sectional, and above all lyrical;
Billy Budd is symphonic. Its continuity is manifest in the two-
act form.* Billy Budd can be more fruitfully compared with
its successor, Gloriarla ; Billy Budd deals with the image of a
state, Gloriarla with the reality. Gloriarla has an almost baffling
diffuseness; Billy Budd a claustrophobic condensing of mood
and material. (There is virtually no recitative : even the con­
versation has memorable thematic structure, and the odd
spoken words have the effect of unpitched percussion in a
highly integrated texture.) We never for a moment forget the
physical confinement of the ship, the rigid hierarchy of the
Service, the continuous activity which is required simply to
keep going, and the underlying tension of possible clashes with
the enemy. These facts have their effect on the music— the
“ activities” of the ship create their own material, and main­
taining the hierarchy is the backbone of the characterisation.
The most interesting structural feature is the main char­
acter, Captain Vere. Forster and Crozier created, in the
Prologue and Epilogue, the situation of the old man looking
* As the most recent performance, December 1966, was taken in two acts,
I shall discuss it in this version, as being the currently definitive one. The
important advantage of this version is the continuity between Acts III
and IV of the earlier performances. I have not undertaken to discuss
different versions and editions of the operas in this book, since it is pri­
marily addressed to audiences rather than historians— and, in any case,
during the composer’s lifetime, each new production is potentially a new
edition : vide pace Handel !
B I L L Y BUDD 79

back to the catastrophe— in Melville’s novel this does not

occur. But Melville himself began the novel when he was
sixty-nine, twenty years after his previous book, and Eric
Walter White* suggests that Vere looking back to “ that far­
away summer of 1797” is in part a portrayal of Melville,
looking back to 1842, when his cousin was involved in a com­
parable incident in the American Navy. Melville’s book is an
attempt to justify the execution of three supposed mutineers,
and the opera becomes Vere’s attempt to justify his own
handling of these incidents. Structurally the Prologue is in any
case necessary to install Vere as the chief character: without
it, Billy might contest the heroic role. Dramatically, Vere’s
importance lies in the fact that he is the only character in
the opera with which an audience likely to be watching can
identify. He has a duel role— in the action and outside it: a
protagonist and a structural prop.
The themes of the opera offer a contrast to the confined
physical scene; they could hardly be more comprehensive:
good and evil in continual conflict on all levels of action
(there is a very politically balanced view of this working
throughout the hierarchy) and the imperfection of human
justice. The librettists take pains to show Vere (as William
Plomer later shows Gloriana) as a far from god-like ruler; he
is a passionate, impetuous character whose inability to step
outside the “ enlightened” humanism of his age brings about
the tragedy. The atmosphere is of violence and fear, obscured
by the physical and metaphysical “ cursed mist” .
Musically the Prologue conveys both the conflict and the
imperfection. Conflict is throughout the opera expressed in
tonal ambivalence, bitonality; and the juxtaposition of notes,
chords, and phrases a semitone apart. In this example it com­
bines with the two descending fourths which form one of the
few specific motifs in the opera, that are attached to Claggart,
Master-at-Arms and the villain:
* In Benjam in B ritten , a sketch o f his life and works .
8o THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

EX. 30

Vere attempts to depict himself: “ I am an old man who has

experienced much. I have been a man of action and have
fought for my King and country at sea. I have also read books
and studied, and pondered, and tried to fathom eternal truth.
Much good has been shown me and much evil, and the good
has never been perfect. There is always some flaw in it, some
defect, some imperfection in the divine image . . . some
stammer in the divine speech.” It is a tranquil, reflective
introduction which has not much to do with the impetuous
character we are to see in the narrative of the opera. Vere
becomes more impassioned, however, at this phrase:
ex . 31
V ere

O what have------ I done?—

These notes, more flexible in application than a motif, repre­

sent the whole of the case for Vere’s defence. They are used
to suggest real or imagined, potential or actual mutiny. This
phrase colours references to the Spithead and the Nore, two
mutinies which informed the nightmares of most naval officers
at this time; it appears as The Rights 0’ Man, innocently in­
volved in the name of Billy’s former ship, mistakenly seized
upon as a reference to Thomas Paine’s radical treatise; it
appears when the Novice attempts to trap Billy into leading
a mutiny and— most significant of all— it becomes the ex­
pansive melodic line of the men’s working song, revealing the
B I L L Y BUDD 8l

raw material of mutiny— the cause and the justification, the

incipient threat.
The B|? major/B minor ambivalence of the Prologue ends
with the opening of the first act— an incisive B minor. The
first scene is an extended portrayal of the normal and typical
activities on the Indomitable. The music is continuous; com­
mands, shanties, conversations, soliloquies, choruses are in
turn imposed upon the continuous orchestral texture which
is in itself illustrative of the compression and congestion of life
at sea. An important rhythmic figure dominates the accom­

paniment to the stage action n JTT3rn j . i This, and

particularly the last group, is associated in the opera with
duty and the daily activity of running the ship. It is usually—
and in the first scene, which is particularly concerned with
establishing rank, exclusively— connected with non-commis­
sioned officers, though by the second act it has come to mean
all inflexible justice, from the King’s Regulations to “ the
laws of earth” . Here it accompanies a holystoning operation
and is contrasted with the broadly lyrical working song of the
men, revealing a symphonic range of material as well as a
basis for the characterisation of large groups. These two ideas
are not interrupted till a new level of the hierarchy is intro­
duced— the commissioned ranks have their own melodic vari­
ant of the ^ J pattern to the words “ Life’s not all play upon
a man of war” . Their light-hearted lack of interest in the men
is pointed musically in the contrast between this and the “ O
heave” chorus. A further recurrent motif is the Bosun’s pipes
— flutes in seconds— used in connection with orders and
activities.
There is an incident at this point which stands out from
the continuity of the background action. The Bosun picks on
the Novice, almost without motivation, and sentences him to
twenty strokes of the cat. It is an incident which is both
82 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

typical and individual. The generalised atmosphere of violence

is emphasised by the fact that such minor characters are
involved— the Bosun, not Claggart; the nameless Novice, not
Billy, Dankser, or Donald. However, it is a significant point
in the plot. It is fear of a repetition of this punishment that
drives the Novice to agree to tempt Billy in the next scene.
The incident has also a purely musical value in that it gives
rise to a sequel— the beautiful ensemble after the punishment,
the only substantial point of repose in the whole scene.
It is dismissed as a typical, characteristic episode— “ If
anyone else wants the cat he can go slipping” . After an
intensified statement of “ O heave” , which is now used as an
inarticulate protest at the cruelty that was normal, there is
a complete change of mood : a prolonged preparation for a
catalytic incident. The orchestra is dominated by woodwind
and horn arpeggio figures— fanfares which seem to herald the
return of the boarding party, but which in fact persist in­
termittently until Billy Budd’s farewell to his former ship, The
Rights o' Man ; at which point the potential tragedy receives its
impetus— the misleading interpretation, the unjustified accu­
sation.
Before this, however, the boarding party returns with three
impressed men. For the first time the music paints a sympa­
thetic portrait of the officers, particularly in the Sailing
Master’s air, “ We seem to have the devil’s own luck” . The
view, carefully sustained in the opera, that problems of prin­
ciple and behaviour existed for all ranks, is confirmed in this
number which closely precedes the appearance of the Master-
at-Arms. Every attempt is made on this occasion to show
John Claggart as a man moulded by his superior officers. The
dolce phrase, “ Your honour, I am at your disposal” , which he
addresses to the first lieutenant is perhaps literally true and
explains the contrasting feroce interrogation of the impressed
men which he conducts. This point is underlined in his sub­
sequent “ I believe that is all you require, your honour” —
B I L L Y BUDD 83

both phrases sung to the successive descending fourths shown

in Ex. 30.
There is a gradual speeding-up of the interviews, and
Billy’s bursts-in with a new vitality, distinguished from his
fellow recruits not only by the faster tempo but by the wider
intervals— fifths instead of thirds— of his answers, which pro­
voke responding fifths from the previously dispirited officers
— “ it’ll hearten us !” Billy’s stammer contrasts with the fluent
style of his lyrical outbursts :
ex . 32

I'm a found - . . . ling !

Most of his arias are developed from this style and most of the
accompaniments to them derive from the arpeggio fanfares of
this scene.
The officers are clearly delighted with Billy and uncom­
plicated in their reception of him. Glaggart’s reaction is more
conspicuous and considerably more ambiguous : over sonor­
ous trombone and tuba chords he sings a phrase:
ex . 33
(a) (b)

Your hon-our, there are no more like him. O beau-ty, O hand-some-ness, good-ness

which occurs whenever he contemplates Billy’s physical and

moral beauty. Later in this scene it is used at “ Look after
your dress, take a pride in yourself, Beauty” ; in the next
scene it becomes “ Handsomely done, my lad, and handsome
is as handsome did it, too” , and in the trial scene it is the
orchestral answer to the first lieutenant’s question, “ Why
should the Master-at-Arms accuse you wrongfully?” This
reaction is, then, the motive for Claggart’s persecution of
84 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

Billy. It is a perversion, but not necessarily merely a sexual

perversion. The themes of Billy Budd and much of the imagery
raise the clash between Claggart and Billy to the status of a
fight between Heaven and Hell: Billy “ saves” and “ blesses”
Vere, he is “ an angel of God” , his is the “ mystery of goodness” ;
Claggart “ established an order such as reigns in hell” , his
world is “ dark” , he is “ iniquity” , Billy strikes him down call­
ing him a “ devil” .
There is something very threatening in the strength and
immediacy of Claggart’s reaction, although it is at this stage
apparently no other than complete approval. The delibera­
tion of this passage is dispelled by Billy’s exuberant aria
“ Billy Budd, King of the Birds” , and the action, held up
while Billy was being assessed, hurries on again— Billy sings
farewell to his former ship using the phrase of Ex. 31 with
the double result of aligning himself with the men and the
pattern of their working song and of arousing the suspicions
of the mutiny-haunted officers.
The first lieutenant consequently orders Claggart to “ in­
struct [his] police” to keep a close watch on Billy. Even the
initiative of doing this is denied Claggart. In the preceding
scene with the impressed men and in the brief aria “ Was I
born yesterday?” Claggart is revealed as crushed between
the officers and the seamen by the nature of his rank. He is
also seen as the reverse side of Vere— Vere has “ studied . . .
and tried to fathom eternal truth” , Claggart has also studied:
“ men and man’s weakness” and “ apprenticed [him] self to
this hateful world” . So in this aria the conflict between Clag­
gart and Billy is already extended to include a duel between
Vere and Claggart (“ eternal truths” versus “ this hateful
world” )— a deliberate widening of the issue which, I think,
precludes a narrowly homosexual interpretation of Claggart’s
response to Billy. In the scene with Squeak, Claggart’s mental
as well as physical bullying is demonstrated. Billy’s arpeggios
return in the orchestra when Cleggart warns Squeak that he
B I L L Y BUDD 85
will be “ playing with fire” . There is an ironic moment when
Claggart taunts: “ He’ll kill you if he catches you!” which— is
just what he does, except that it is Claggart whom Billy kills,
and without ever quite, comprehendingly, “ catching” him.
This incident with Squeak is placed next to the following
scene, the Novice after his flogging, partly to suggest the
possibility of Claggart’s later use of the Novice in place of
Squeak. The vocal casting is the clue: Claggart as a bass has
most of his scenes with tenors, invariably dominating them—
Red Whiskers, Squeak, and later the Novice. We are not,
then, surprised when he attempts to dominate Vere,
We earlier saw that the incident of the Novice’s flogging
has both a general and a particular importance in the plot.
The same is true of its sequel. It is the first expression of
compassion in the opera, universalised by the chorus— “ We’re
all of us lost for ever on the endless sea” — yet intimately and
personally expressed by the Novice’s friend (“ I’ll look after
you” ), an utterly insignificant character, but here showing
an aspect of Vere’s paternal role and ranging himself on the
side of the angels in this drama. Musically it is a marvellous
interlude. The saxophone melody, at first unaccompanied,
later underlaid by an undecorated inversion :
e x . 34
Alto Saxophone

has an awareness of physical pain that is almost uncomfortable

to listen to; it expresses, too, the hopelessness of the comfort
offered to the Novice :

Novice's Friend: He’s only a boy and he cannot walk!

Claggart : Let him crawl.
86 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

It is significant that the theme is itself both an outline of the

minor sixth of the mutiny motif (here applied, as in “ O heave” ,
as a mutiny motive) and an inversion of “ Starry Vere” , the
loyal acclamation we are shortly to hear uniting the officers
and men.
One of the most moving lines in the ensemble is the
Novice’s Friend’s interlocking minor thirds to which he sings
“ Come along, kid” . This is transformed and extended in the
ensuing scherzando episode into a new headlong phrase for the
clarinet, the action hurrying on again. It is answered by a
more hesitant bassoon phrase of successive and simultaneous
major seconds. This twofold material continues in the or­
chestra against a comparatively light-hearted ensemble for
Billy, Red Whiskers, Donald, and Dansker. And when this
cluster of individual incidents is brought to a close in the
scene finale, an assembly of the entire crew, the bassoon
phrase is seen to be connected with the Bosun’s pipes theme ;
the duty rhythm returns and, with a vast ternary feeling, the
focus retreats, we take in the ship as a whole once more. And
more than the ship : we are reminded of the war with France,
which is the reason for most of the action of the plot— the
harsh discipline, the press-ganging, the tension among the
officers. It is also the reason for Vere’s ultimate betrayal of
Billy.
The second scene is a slowly-moving nocturne. In con­
spicuous contrast to the first scene there is a complete absence
of any “ activity” music. The atmosphere of relaxation ex­
tends over the whole ship. The mood of intimacy is sustained
through each of the various episodes with each level of the
hierarchy. The only tensions are that the ship is approaching
enemy waters and Claggart’s plot— often identified with the
progress of the ship— is approaching execution.
After a beautiful and tranquil prelude, which includes a
less than urgent reference to the duty rhythm, we are in
Vere’s cabin— this recalls the Prologue, and establishes a con­
B I L L Y BUDD 87

tinuity between the character of Vere as exposed in the Pro­

logue and the “ man of action” acclaimed at the close of the
first scene. (It is interesting to contrast Vere with the Male
Chorus in Lucretia: both are immersed in classical history;
Vere, of the eighteenth century, aspiring to identify himself
with pre-Christian standards, “ May their virtues be ours, and
their courage” , while the Male Chorus, a first century-Chris-
tian, rejects their virtues and their courage. Vere’s failure to
save Billy is a direct result of his classically slanted view of
life. He sees Billy as the consenting victim which expediency
and the good of his “ people” require him to sacrifice.) The
material of the prelude recurs throughout this episode, a
genial scene between Vere and his officers with a fierce climax
when mutiny is mentioned— we have here an insight into the
horror with which these men regarded the possibility of
mutiny. Vere has a passionate aria of protest against the
mutiny at the Nore, the first of the impetuous outbursts which
are more characteristic of him in the course of the opera than
the reflective attitude in the Prologue and Epilogue. The
episodes of this nocturnal scene are more continuously lyrical
than in the first scene: the off-stage singing of shanties is
heard in Vere’s cabin; it is interrupted by the duty rhythm,
loud and precise now, on trumpets, not in the relaxed
woodwind version of the prelude. The ship has reached enemy
waters and Vere dismisses his officers. As he returns to his
reading the shanties intrude again and are transferred to the
orchestra in a sensuously lyrical interlude— the men have,
throughout the opera, substantial melodic compensation for
the hardships of their life.
The shanties, like Vere’s books, are the formal expression
of relaxation and escapism in his scene. As in the last episode,
there is a central violent climax, when Billy finds Squeak
(under Claggart’s orders) tampering with his possessions.
Claggart interrupts the fight between them and punishes
Squeak not so much for failing to get the better of Billy but
88 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B RI T T E N

rather as a relief to his own confused emotions— “ the light

shines in the darkness and the darkness comprehends it and
suffers” . Again the episodes overlap. There is a strong feeling
of simultaneous action in this scene, in contrast to the first
scene : a narration, a succession of incidents. Against a back­
ground of the third shanty of the scene, Claggart broods over
his phrase “ Handsomely done, my lad” (Ex. 33), which be­
comes, when the chorus dies away, his main aria.
This number, “ O beauty, O handsomeness, goodness” ,
goes some way— not all of the way— towards explaining the
ambiguities in Claggart’s character. It establishes (even allow­
ing for the convention of the soliloquy) a morbid degree of
introspection which contrasts with Vere, always an outward­
looking character, so little given to brooding on the past that
he has, in the Prologue, difficulty in recalling the events of
this drama. Unlike Vere, Claggart knows himself. He is not
a totally corrupt man, a Machiavel. The conflict is still going
on, and in this aria he is in torment. There is a glimmer of
unwillingness in the phrase “ would that I had never en­
countered you!” and a perception of goodness when he sings,
“ if love still lives and grows strong where I cannot enter, what
hope is there in my own dark world for me?” It is a sense of
hopelessness that drives him to annihilate Billy and we feel
that, in spite of the common cruelty and persecution of his
environment, this is a unique decision for Claggart. The result
is very beautiful musically. The mood alternates between
Claggart’s suffering in the presence of goodness (the Ex. 33
theme coloured as on all its appearances by the trombone
which follows the voice line closely, at times coinciding with
it, otherwise in canon— a slightly blurred image in the looking-
glass), with a forceful middle section containing Claggart’s
resolve to destroy Billy. This part is built around rising scale
passages of enormous energy. It is unusual for Claggart to
have such a proportion of upward-moving phrases. Even his
personal motif (see Ex. 30) is turned inside out and inverted
B I L L Y BUDD 89
to the words “ So may it be!” (Inversions of this phrase are
rare and always significant. Claggart uses it when he promises
Squeak “ I’ll make no trouble” — which would have been an
inversion of his normal behaviour had it turned out to be
true, and is, in fact, contradicted by his summary arrest of
Squeak after the fight with Billy. Vere uses the same shape
when he sings, “ if I destroy goodness” and “ it is for me to
destroy you” , marking again the connection between himself
and Claggart and showing how he unwillingly carries out
Claggart’s ironic predictions. At the end of this aria when
Claggart sings, “ I will destroy you” , we hear the straight
version of this motif, since what is horrifyingly abnormal for
Vere to contemplate is characteristic for Claggart.) The aria
finishes with another parallel between Claggart and Vere—
over sustained minor F chords (the key of the trial scene and
of Vere’s aria “ I accept their verdict” ) Claggart sings on one
note, “ I, John Claggart, Master-at-Arms upon the Indomitable,
have you in my power” , a passage exactly comparable with
“ I, Edward Fairfax Vere, Captain of the Indomitable, lost with
ail hands on the infinite sea” ; the music here points a com­
plex comparison between levels and efficacies of power.
Following immediately upon this aria, the Novice enters
to the pathetic saxophone melody of the flogging scene. This
episode, in which Claggart intimidates the Novice by violence
into betraying Billy, is perhaps the most moving in the opera.
The Novice is a more accessible character than Billy. It is
easier to sympathise with him and easier to understand his
reactions. We see him suffering in a way in which Billy is
never seen to suffer. In this despairing cry:

e x . 35
N o v ic b

Y es, I'll w o rk fo r yo u , I ’ ll w o rk for yo u , I'v e no choice.

90 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

he becomes (like Vere in the Prologue), if only momentarily,

a character with whom the audience can identify them­
selves.
The nocturnal mood deepens as the next music portrays
Billy asleep. This music is the same as that at the beginning of
the last scene of the opera— a point which has no signi­
ficance here, but which shows later how untroubled Billy’s
sleep then is: because of Vere’s strengthening influence Billy
is then as calm as he is now, before the tragic events begin.
The Novice interrupts his sleep with a brisk, whispered
incitement to mutiny— the mutiny motif is transformed into a
crisp march as the Novice (very cleverly) puts Claggart’s
plan into action, and into a smoother muted-trumpet version
when he offers him the gold as a bribe. The duet breaks up
with Billy’s stammer music when he realises the point to
which the Novice’s arguments have led.
The closing section of the act is between Billy and Dansker,
establishing once again Billy’s impenetrable goodness and his
utter lack of suspicion in the face of Dansker’s warnings. It is
exuberant music which has thrown off all trace of the dream­
ing phrases, over a ground bass which is Claggart’s motif and
its inversion. Dansker’s line moves with the bass, cynical,
experienced, and unheeded. Billy himself has a filled-in
version of the Claggart shape at the words “ He [Claggart]
calls me that sweet, pleasant fellow” — the sinister fourths
transformed into a line of utter innocence.
The second act opens with a splendidly organised return
to the activity music which was paramount in the first scene
of the opera. Everything that happens in the opera has the
two dramatic functions of general effect and particular con­
tribution to the plot. Here the attempted sea-fight is part of
the working background of the ship, as well as enacting the
image of Vere pursuing his moral enemy through the mists
of distrust.
The vivace prelude is based, like so much of the instru­
B I L L Y BUDD gì

mental music in this opera, on two interposed ideas. The

woodwind and trumpets have a chordal figure:
E x. 36
V ivace

which is later identified with the chorus “ This is our moment,

the moment we’ve been waiting for.” It is linked with the
mutiny motif by being the interval of a fifth turning inwards
by a semitone, instead of outwards, an additional aspect of
the characterisation of the men. It is here answered by— and
later combined with— a timpani and strings rhythm, perhaps
representing the suspense of waiting for action, certainly
used to portray the frustration of failure at the close of the
episode. An important development of Ex. 36 is its arpeggio
shape extended upwards through different keys— this appears
at references to, and at the physical presence of the mist; it
results in a blurring and distortion of the fighting theme, and
the disappointment of the hopes that theme stands for.
Before the fight there is a brief scene between Vere and
Claggart. Claggart enters to an evil, urgent semitone shift :
E x. 37

linked vitally to the musical argument not only by the

juxtaposition of keys and chords a semitone apart, which
usually prefaces Claggart’s entries, but also because these
notes are another way of outlining the mutiny pattern,
particularly the transformation of it used when the Novice
tempted Billy with gold. This chord shift is combined with an
inversion of the mutiny motif (in the bass line) in Claggart’s
tentative arioso, “ With great regret do I disturb your
92 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

honour” . He is interrupted before he reveals the content of

his accusation. Back to the action, the Ex. 36 phrase is now
answered by the duty rhythm : an enemy sail has been sighted,
and “ the mist is gone!”
The ensuing choral ensemble is based on a further variant
of Ex. 36 which adds a major seventh to the rising arpeggio
and descends by another chord. Then the mood of random
excitement is banished and the organisation of a sea-fight is
put into motion. The timpani plus strings rhythm from the
act prelude becomes an ostinato accompaniment to a broad
and purposeful version of Ex. 36, the chorus “ This is our
moment” . Against these two continuing streams of music the
Gunners, Seamen, After-Guardsmen, Powder Monkeys, and
Marines are added in sequence to a large visual and aural
build-up (like Noye’s animals coming out of the Ark). Each
section has its own melodic material which is finally com­
bined and superimposed on the “ This is our moment” chorus
and the recurrent rhythm. All this tremendous potential
action now— literally— hangs fire, waiting for Vere’s com­
mand. They are out of range, and in an exquisite quiet
climax the chorus conjure up the wind with a hymn that
must have taken Vere back to Aulis ! It is a moment of great
tension : the pianissimo chorus, with single phrases relating to
the anxious progress of the ship being passed along the
hierarchical lines of communication. It is Vere who releases
the tension and orders them to try a shot. Immediately the
suspense has vanished and with a short, loud, unaccompanied
climax the shot is fired. It falls short and the waiting tension
begins again, to be released this time by the return of the
mist. The men disperse to a subdued diminished-chord
version of their chorus, now singing “ Gone is our moment. . . ”
The act prelude is recapitulated with diminished dynamics,
and Britten reworks the drama from the point of view of
Claggart, Vere, and Billy. This is Claggart’s moment, the
moment he has been waiting for. With the chord shift of Ex.
B I L L Y BUDD 93

37 he takes up the arioso which was interrupted before the

fight preparations. Claggart is either completely insensitive to
Vere’s cool and discouraging reception of him— like a plod­
ding subordinate who must make the whole of the speech he
has prepared— or, more consistent with the portrait that has
been built up, he enjoys the same power over Vere (who must
in reason listen to the reports of his “ police” ) as he wields
over the miserable Squeak and Novice. At all events, he
holds Vere’s unwilling attention with a description of an
unnamed mutineer (the accompaniment expresses the mutiny
figure in linear, chordal, and superimposed transformations),
saving the vital word, “ mutiny” , for a whispered phrase, as
Vere did to his officers in the second scene of Act I. There, for
Vere, it was “ a word which we scarcely dare speak” ; now he
takes it up forte— “ mutiny? I’m not to be scared by words !” —
with the inconsistency of a passionate man. Claggart describes
the tempting of Billy, by the Novice, reversing the roles. The
accompaniment continues to evolve from the mutiny phrase
in a pattern which is really derived from Ex. 37, opened out to
be reminiscent of the Novice’s temptation scene in the first
act. This shape recurs when Claggart accuses Billy of bribery
in the next scene.
Vere immediately puts his finger on the weak point in
the scheme— “ How came the boy by gold, a common
seaman? Strange story!” When Claggart names Billy as
the mutineer, Vere launches into a spontaneous defence
of him: “ Nay, you’re mistaken. Your police have deceived
you. Don’t come to me with so foggy a tale.” He is driven
by Claggart’s continued accusations into forcing a con­
frontation between Claggart and Billy. And with Vere’s
reminder— “ There’s a yard-arm for a false witness” — the
struggle is a life and death one for both. Vere precipitates
the tragedy at this point because he cannot bear any un­
certainty about Billy’s character, not because of his fear of
mutiny. Billy’s influence over Vere is seen in this number,
94 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

which recalls the fluent lyricism of Billy’s aria style rather

than the agitated leaping intervals of Vere’s aria denouncing
the mutiny at the Nore. The pounding rhythm in the orches­
tra continues through the conversation arranging the inter­
view with Billy, and Claggart’s opportunity to accuse him.
It stops only with the reappearance of the mist motif, which
introduces an ironic episode in which Vere damns the
“ confusion without and within” while his officers bemoan
the physical mist and the loss of the French ship.
In a phrase which first appeared in the scene in his cabin in
Act i, Vere prays for “ the light of clear Heaven to separate
evil from good” . This phrase becomes, in an orchestral inter­
lude, a kind of chorale on the brass against an extension and
development of the mist theme, presumably representing the
doubts and aspirations in Vere’s mind. Towards the end of
the interlude the music turns to a radiant D major; Billy’s
characteristic fanfares flood the orchestra and continue
through much of the next scene. In his cabin, Vere is now
confident that “ the boy whom [Claggart] would destroy . . .
is good” . He undergoes several changes of opinion about this
in the ensuing minutes, but at this point “ the mists are vanish­
ing” and he is determined to confound Claggart and the evil
he represents. Billy enters— the arpeggios continue in a new
horn version— and, misled into expecting his promotion, he
protests his loyalty to Vere: “ I’d die for you” . The “ duty”
rhythmic pattern announces Claggart’s arrival and he enters
to an apparently new theme which is simply a devious variant
of the mutiny motif again, now transformed into the accusa­
tion theme. It entwines in canon when Claggart enters. It is
contrasted with a sharp, clear return to D major and the duty
rhythm when Vere addresses the “ accuser and accused” ; it
returns to colour Vere’s reference to “ the penalties of false­
hood” . This theme becomes, naturally, Claggart’s vocal line
when he formally accuses Billy. Vere orders Billy, to the duty
motif, to answer the accusations. Billy replies only with his
B I L L Y BUDD 95

stammer, overcome by his outraged reaction. It seems to be

Vere’s kindly gesture, in aligning himself with Billy as closely
as he dares, that releases the physical force of anger in Billy.
And Billy strikes Claggart dead. The orchestra has a vivid
portrayal of the literal disintegration of Claggart’s being
through the fragmentation of his motif down the orchestra.
Vere then behaves quite extraordinarily. Without making
any attempt to communicate with him or understand his
behaviour, he sends Billy to wait in the adjacent stateroom
and immediately summons his officers.* The absence of any
attempt on Vere’s part to come to terms with the situation
alone is a most striking contrast between his character and
Claggart’s. The lack of a real intimacy between Vere and his
officers emerged from the nocturnal scene in the first act—
Vere does not even speak the same language. Yet at this
highly personal dilemma he hurries to share the situation with
them, realising only after he has sent the message that he now
sees “ all the mists concealed” , and that consequently it is not
Billy’s trial but his. The Claggart/Vere conflict has now
replaced the Claggart/Billy antithesis, even though Claggart
is now dead. It is pointed musically with utter simplicity in
the phrase “ It is I whom the Devil awaits” : Claggart’s motif
inverted for the first half of the phrase (Vere) and in situ for
the word “ Devil” .
The conduct of the trial is further evidence of Vere’s
extreme agitation. He announces baldly and misleadingly to
the officers, “ Gentlemen, William Budd here has killed the
Master-at-Arms” , while simultaneously acknowledging in an

* In Melville’s novel the extraordinary nature of Vere’s total behaviour

is discussed at length, but at this particular point in the story he is given
a little time to breathe: after confirming that Claggart was dead, “Vere
with one hand covering his face stood to all appearance as impassive as
the object at his feet. Was he absorbed in taking all the bearings of the
event and what was best not only now at once to be done, but also in the
sequel ? Slowly he uncovered his face ; and the effect was as if the moon
emerging from eclipse should reappear with quite another aspect than
that which had gone into hiding . . . ”
96 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

aside that Claggart was “ struck by an angel, an angel of

God, yet the angel must hang” . This line is a continuation of
Vere’s soliloquy before the officers arrived, dealing with his
own moral trial which he knows to be taking place. The
answering trio of the two lieutenants and the Sailing Master
and the subsequent ensembles for these officers are splendidly
true and effective, from their individualised first reactions to
an increasing degree of agreement and their final unanimity
when they reach their verdict. The duty motif, predictably,
spurs Vere on to summoning the “ drumhead court” . The fact
that this is his trial is portrayed (in a way reminiscent of
the Prologue of Peter Grimes) when he appears as witness, to be
cross-examined by his own officers. An instrumental preface
to the trial sets in apposition the accusation motif and the
Ex. 33 phrase, stating as unambiguously as if it were verbal
that all Claggart could accuse Billy of was “ beauty, hand­
someness, goodness” . This point is made again in the trial—
the first lieutenant asks Billy, “ Why should the Master-at-
Arms accuse you wrongfully?” The orchestra replies repeat­
edly and explicitly when Billy cannot and Vere will not do so.
When the first lieutenant asks Billy if he has anything more to
say, Billy appeals to Vere— “ Captain Vere, save me ! I5d have
died for you” , and the horn recalls the exultant texture of
Billy’s avowal of this, before the tragedy— at a time, more­
over, when Vere was confidently on Billy’s side, which must
make an agonising contrast for him here.
Billy is sent out while the orchestra inverts the extended
accusation theme which opened the trial. In the following
ensemble the three officers try the problem from all points of
view and come to the fateful conclusion that:

e x . 38

1st L ieu ten a nt

S ailing M aster
L ieu ten a nt R atcliffe
W e ’ ve no c h o ic e .
B I L L Y BUDD 97

These notes, like the dilemma, they try all ways round. In a
tense passage we hear the rival appeals of the officers— “ Sir,
help us with your knowledge and wisdom . . . grant us your
guidance” — and the pianissimo (interior) promptings of the
duty rhythm on muted trumpets. To this rhythm Vere accepts
their verdict of hanging and the scene with the ritornello of the
accusation and beauty-handsomeness-goodness motifs whis­
pered on the harp.
As in Lucretia> there are three funeral marches around the
protagonist’s death. The first is Vere’s next aria, “ I accept
their verdict” . It is punctuated throughout with the duty
motif on the trumpets, now unmuted, which here represents
the limitations of human justice. Vere reveals that he has also
accepted a verdict against himself, though he is fully aware of
the short-lived logic and even splendour of his decision :

ex. 39

This expansive thought is soon dwarfed in the face of the

“ divine judgement of Heaven” and he is “ cooped in this
narrow cabin” . The horn, which reminded Vere in the trial
of his betrayal of Billy’s absolute trust in him, now hounds
him into a state of panic— “ Before what tribunal do I stand
if I destroy goodness? . . . I, Edward Fairfax Vere, Captain
of the Indomitable, lost with all hands on the infinite sea.” In a
coda, his thoughts turn to Billy, while the orchestra has a fast
and passionate version of the saxophone melody of Ex. 34. It
effects— if it is recognised— a return to a consideration of
98 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

punishment and suffering here and now: “ I am the messenger

of death. How can he pardon? How receive me?” The
answer is given once more in musical rather than verbal
terms. Vere goes into the cabin where Billy is waiting, leaving
the orchestra to play a series of chords, each coloured with a
separate section of instruments and dynamic intensity, express­
ing by sonority alone the extremely complex range of reac­
tions and emotions taking place behind the closed door.
This extended cadence resolves with the opening of the
next scene— it is nearly morning and Billy is half asleep,
dreaming to the sleepy music we heard in the previous act
when the Novice woke him and tempted him. The constant
tonic, indeed the costant F major pedal chord, is very striking
after the spectrum of chord colour at the end of the previous
scene. This is the first moment of emotional repose since Vere’s
confident perception of good and evil in his cabin before
Claggart’s accusation (“ Claggart, John Claggart, beware!
I’m not so easily deceived” ). It is, of course, all the more
amazing that this calm emanates from a man in irons who is
shortly to be executed; but that is Billy’s “ mystery of good­
ness” , the consenting sacrifice which can “ save” Vere. In
spite of this, Billy is not at all withdrawn. With Dansker we
are reminded that he is very much one of the men, although
he has been flung into the lives of Vere and his officers.
Because of the musical organisation of the opera, Dansker is
able to suggest in five notes (“ They swear you shan’t swing” )
the mutiny threatened and, although Billy rejects it, this
possibility is an extra tension during the last scene of the
opera. The beginning of Billy’s dreaming aria was essentially
a continuation of the overtly sexual cadential chords of the
preceding scene: at the end of this episode they return
(inexactly), gradually intruding on Billy’s ecstatic “ And fare­
well to ye, old Rights o' Man" , conspicuously at the words “ I ’m
contented” , and taking over the entire accompaniment when
he sings : “ I’m strong, and I know it, and I’ll stay strong . . .
B I L L Y BUD 99

and that’s all . . . that’s enough.” An orchestral interlude

reviews the dramatic situation, alternating at first phrases
of Billy-characterising arpeggio fanfares with the theme
attached to the verdict, “ Hanging from the yard-arm” (given
a new counter-subject), and later the verdict theme with
the duty motif and the Bosun’s pipes.
We now come to the second funeral march. In the early-
morning light the entire crew silently assembles in the same
order and to the same melodic tags that formed the basis of
their preparations for the fight at the beginning of the act.
Vere enters to the “ Starry Vere” motif and another group of
the chords, harking back to the unforgettable close of the
verdict scene. Billy is heralded by his own fanfares, inter­
rupted by the “ hanging” phrase. The first lieutenant reads
the sentence. Billy suddenly sings, “ Starry Vere, God bless
you!” which is taken up immediately by the entire assembly.
Billy’s death is dealt with instrumentally— a long rising scale
as he ascends the mast and the “ hanging” phrase which is now
sufficiently verbalised to be explanatory. The fulfilment of
dramatic situations in purely musical terms is a satisfying
feature of Billy Budd. The musical and textural treatment of
the mutiny motif throughout the opera gives an overwhelm­
ing significance to the worldless chorus which now starts up—
mutiny which we have only seen discussed, simulated, and
threatened till now, mutiny for which we have seen ample
cause, held in check only by even more dangerous provoca­
tion. To avert the possibility of mutiny, Vere sacrifices Billy,
and in doing so comes nearer to arousing one than at any
previous point in the opera. When the rebellious chorus turns
into “ O heave” as it is overcome, we are very aware of a
continuing explosive situation, kept underground but not
extinguished by the habitually inflexible “ laws of earth” .
The scene merges into Vere’s Epilogue, which begins like
the Prologue, but soon adds a recurrent timpani figure,
transforming it into the third funeral march. The narration
100 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

of Billy’s death gives way to wider considerations: “ I could

have saved him. He knew it, even his shipmates knew it,
though earthly laws silenced them” , and the Bosun’s pipes
and the duty rhythm show how they were silenced. Vere
asks, as in the Prologue, “ O what have I done?” and at this
stage in the work we can recognise the orchestral answer—
duty. Instead of the “ confusion, so much is confusion!”
passage in the Prologue, we have a transformation of Billy’s
last aria, “ And farewell to ye, old Rights o' Man” — a more
tranquil, Vere-of-the-Epilogue characterised version, but
underlining the fact that his peace of mind is bequeathed
him by Billy. The chords from the verdict scene are incor­
porated in the orchestral texture which retains the rocking
intervals of the “ infinite sea” now settled increasingly
firmly in Bb major. The confidence expressed in the tonality
is reflected in the wide, untroubled intervals to which the
words “ I am an old man now . . .” are set, in contrast to the
Prologue. The Epilogue, itself a recession from the drama,
now recedes further, dynamically dropping away from a big
climax, and dropping vocally in pitch to an unaccompanied
finish. The position of Vere as audience-representative in the
opera is sealed for me in the tremendous withdrawal in the
words here— “ and my mind can go back in peace to that far­
away Summer of seventeen hundred and ninety seven, long
ago now, years ago, centuries ago . . . ”
Chapter six

Gloriana
 Libretto by William Plomer.
First performed at Covent Garden, June 1953.

CHARACTERS
QUEEN ELIZABETH I Joan Cross, soprano
Robert devereux , Earl of Essex Peter Pears, tenor
Frances , Countess of Essex Monica Sinclair,
mezzo-soprano
Charles blount , Lord Mountjoy Geraint Evans, baritone
Penelope , Lady Rich, sister to Essex Jennifer Vyvyan, soprano
sir Robert Cecil , secretary of the
Council Arnold Matters, baritone
sir Wal ter ralei gh , captain of the
Guard Frederick Dalberg, bass
henry cuffe , a satellite of Essex Ronald Lewis, baritone
A LADY-IN-WAITING Adele Leigh, soprano
A BLIND BALLAD-SINGER Inia Te Wiata, bass
THE RECORDER OF NORWICH Michael Langdon, bass
A HOUSEWIFE Edith Coates, mezzo-
soprano
THE SPIRIT OF THE MASQUE William McAlpine, tenor
THE MASTER OF CEREMONIES David Tree, tenor
THE CITY CRIER Rhydderch Davies,
baritone
chorus ; dancers ; actors ;
MUSICIANS
Conductor: John Pritchard
Producer: Basil Coleman
Designer: John Piper
Choreographer: John Cranko
Chorus Master: Douglas Robinson
SYNOPSIS

act i, scene i : The story takes place in England in the later

years of Queen Elizabeth Fs reign, which lasted from 1558 to
1603. Outside a tilting-ground, during a tournament. The
Earl of Essex, learning of Mountjoy’s prowess in the tourna­
ment, incites him to a duel which the entry of Queen
Elizabeth interrupts; Gloriana orders the two lords to forget
their quarrel and “ come to court . . . together” .

scene 2: In her private apartment at Nonesuch, Elizabeth

conducts politics with Cecil and more private business with
Essex. Essex sings two lute songs to divert her, protests his
love, and asks to be sent to Ireland to quell the rebel Tyrone.
The Queen dismisses him and rededicates herself to her duty
and her people.

act 11, scene 1: The Guildhall at Norwich. On progress

through the city, the Queen is entertained by a rustic masque.

scene 2 : At night in the garden of Essex House in the Strand.

Mountjoy and Penelope Rich (Essex’s sister) have a romantic
assignation which is disturbed by the entry of Essex, com­
plaining to his wife that the Queen will not give him the
advancement he craves. Lady Essex attempts to restrain her
husband’s ambition, but Mountjoy and Penelope join with
Essex in conspiring to seize power.

scene 3: Dancing at the Palace of Whitehall at night. Lady

Essex arrives in a particularly splendid dress. Elizabeth is
piqued, and to show her disapproval arranges to have the
dress stolen; she appears in it herself—it is too short for the
104 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

Queen and the effect is ridiculous. When she retires for a

second time the conspirators of the previous scene comfort
Lady Essex, while Essex becomes increasingly bitter against
the Queen. At the height of his outburst Elizabeth returns
and announces the appointment of Essex as Lord Deputy in
Ireland.

act hi , scene i : An ante-room to the Queen’s dressing-

room at Nonesuch. Essex has returned to England un­
announced and breaks in upon the Queen before she is
dressed, painted, or bewigged. Essex is confused and the
Queen is kind, but he cannot rekindle the intimacies of the
first Act; and when she dismisses him, Elizabeth directs Cecil
to have Essex placed under guard— she has ‘Tailed to tame
[her] thoroughbred” .

scene 2 : A street in the City of London. Essex, with a hand­

ful of supporters, breaks out and attempts to “ rouse up all the
city” . He fails disastrously and is proclaimed a traitor.

scene 3: A room in the Palace of Whitehall. Essex has been

found guilty and condemned to die. The Queen has yet to
sign the death-warrant. She is petitioned by Lady Essex and
Penelope Rich. Lady Essex pleads for her children and the
Queen promises to protect them; she is gracious and kind.
Penelope’s arrogant manner antagonises her, however, and in
her anger Elizabeth quickly signs the death-warrant.

ep i l ogue : The stage darkens and the Queen is left alone.

Time and place become fluid, as various scenes from the last
years of Elizabeth’s life are enacted in spoken dialogue against
the second lute song in the orchestra. Gloriana dies to the
strains of both the private love and the public homage she
lived to inspire.
 “ The first performance of Gloriarla took place on the 8th of
July 1953, at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in
the presence of Her Majesty the Queen.”
“ This work is dedicated by gracious permission to Her
Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in honour of whose Coronation
it was composed.”

Contrary to all appearances Gloriarla was not merely an

occasional opera. It is by virtue of its interior nature the
antithesis of a one-occasion work. Its subject is so vast, and
the treatment so diffuse, that it can only be grasped as a
whole after the event— or preferably on a second exposure to
it. Britten had not previously written an opera that was not
in some way concerned with limiting factors, from the
physical limitations of a chamber orchestra, children’s or all­
male voices, to the psychological limitations of the nineteenth-
century provincial collective mentality. In Gloriarla all of
these are swept away. It is set in an age which— certainly in
I953— was felt to be peculiarly relevant to inspire our own
times; an age, moreover, whose musical language is better
known to us than that of any intervening period. And it deals
not with a borough, but a nation. On this point— the opera’s
sheer vastness and scope— depend its successes and its
failures.
The book, Lytton Strachey’s Elizabeth and Essex, on which
the libretto is avowedly based is a red herring. The opera is
not an account of the relationship of Elizabeth and Essex.
Essex is far too patchily drawn and the proportions are quite
wrong for this to be so. In fact, Essex is consciously withdrawn
from prominence of a number of occasions. He is the most
representative of Elizabeth’s decorative but ineffectual
favourites, but Mountjoy is early shown to enjoy nearly
I06 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

similar intimacies, and Raleigh, equal power. The “ love”

between Elizabeth and Essex was of Elizabeth’s creating: “ as
her charms grew less, her insistence on their presence grew
greater. She had been content with the devoted homage of her
contemporaries ; but from the young men who surrounded her
in her old age she required— and received— the expressions of
romantic passion . . .” (Strachey). The opera has a triple
theme: it is about kingship— the relationship between a
sovereign and her people; it also contains an intimate portrait
of the public and private person of the Queen; and it is a
portrayal— necessarily brief but very varied— of the age.
Musically, this last point creates problems. To revivify the
richest previous age in our musical history, the language of the
opera must take some cognisance of the language of the period,
without falling into worthless pastiche. In Gloriarla we become
aware of the musical style the originals of the characters
knew. At times it is nearer the surface than others. And its
spirit does imbue the opera in some very concrete ways : there
is, of course, the deliberate rethinking of madrigals and court
dances in the second act, but there is also the harmonic
fingerprint of the opera— common chords on neighbouring
degrees of the scale— that gives a bright clarity to the
“ public” scenes, and this sort of directness to the “ private”
ones:

ex. 40
GL O RI ANA 107

The first scene is a taste of public life. It opens with an

orchestral prelude which exactly anticipates the action and
the music of the beginning of the scene. It is a jousting
tournament, and in the prelude we hear the sennets and the
charges in a series of variations on the theme of the first
fanfare :
e x . 41

Very lively

All this is repeated when the curtain rises: the fanfares

become the off-stage crowd, following the fortunes of their
favourite, Mountjoy, in the lists; the quicker music accom­
panies Cuffe’s description of the action and Essex’s reactions.
Almost at once Essex reveals his jealousy in a phrase which
appeared as a counter-subject in the prelude: to the words
“ I hate the name of him” he sings notes which later condemn
him (“ Essex is guilty” in the last act). The only other im­
portant theme in this movement is the inconspicuous appear­
ance of the “ homage” chorus which we are soon to hear sung
off-stage.
It is an awkward beginning for the opera. Dramatically, it
is concerned with a side-issue: although Essex’s jealousy was a
io8 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

pertinent factor in his historical career (and this is one of the

many scenes in the opera which is based on a historical
incident) it is not of tremendous importance in this opera.
And the fact that this particular jealousy— of Mountjoy— is
about to be negated by a lifelong (or at least opera-long)
friendship makes it a less than significant incident. The
importance of this sort of occurrence for the Queen is revealed
in passing at the end of the next scene: “ on rivalries 5tis safe
for kings to base their power55. It has more significance— and
attraction— for her than for the audience.
The opera starts dramatically with the first choral appear­
ance (still off-stage) of the hymn of homage:
e x . 42
Slowly moving
C h or u s

5 7 3 3 7 8 8 3
3

Crown - ed rose a - mong— the leaves so green!,

This returning chorus expresses the nation’s devotion to its

Queen, an operatic as well as historical point. Mountjoy
enters singing the same notes, identifying himself with the
attitude Elizabeth required of her favourites and binding
himself—visually— to the royal favour in the form of a gold
chess piece. Essex, out to pick a quarrel, immediately turns
the music away from the homage chorus and the “ public55
key of D major into D minor, the key of his petulance towards
the Queen. One phrase— the D-minor arpeggio at “ a favour
GL O RI ANA 109
now for every fool55— is to be associated in an ambiguous way
with his standing in the Queen’s favour; it is the phrase in
which he is appointed “ Lord Deputy in Ireland55— an
appointment which was, indeed, according to Strachey, a
favour for a fool. But this phrase is also, in a major key and
with an altered ending, the moving consolation he offers his
wife in the dress incident— “ Good Frances, do not weep55;
and again in this version, the proud, miscalculated petition for
mercy his sister sings in the last act— “ The noble Earl of
Essex Was born to fame and fortune . . .”
In the middle of the duel the Queen arrives. Whenever she
is on stage the dramatic inconsistencies are unimportant. For
this formidable portrait, Britten does not confine her music
inside a handful of motifs. It is a very wide-ranging style;
usually noble, often declamatory, rarely lyrical. It is a style
which— embracing all forms of communication from the
spoken word to the passionate duets with Essex— only gradu­
ally emerges as personal or indeed even consistent. Like the
opera itself, it has a physical range which is difficult to assess
and appreciate at any one moment in the work.
Everything in the opera is made subservient to the pro­
jection of Elizabeth’s character. This scene is interspersed
with short choral phrases, describing, not contributing to, the
action; they serve as a reminder that this is a court scene, not
a private one— a vital distinction in this opera. There is a
brief, memorable duet for Essex and Mountjoy, subtitled in
the score “ The Two Lords’ Explanation55: all the scenes are
divided into incidents in this way, emphasising the episodic
construction of the scenes and, indeed, of the entire opera.
The minor characters— Raleigh and Cecil in particular—
exist musically almost wholly in a series of closed forms, not
so much arias as songs: there is no character development.
They are presented as ready-made historical figures. Raleigh,
in his song “ The bluefly and the bee” , emerges as the charac­
ter of the scene. As with Cecil, we need background knowledge
IIO THE OPERAS OF BENJAMIN B R I T T E N

of the part he played in Essex’s downfall, to understand his

full significance.
Mutual dislike of Raleigh draws Essex and Mountjoy
together. There follows an “ Ensemble of Reconciliation” , a
movement with a curiously mechanical texture— curious
until we recall the “ divisions” of keyboard music of the age,
the pattern of which this imitates. It culminates in another
appearance of the homage chorus and the Queen departs to
the accompaniment of similar on-stage trumpet fanfares to
those which heralded her arrival.
Scene 2 is in great contrast. It is a private scene: the
Queen closeted with her wise councillor (Cecil) and her un­
wise pseudo-lover (Essex). It is easy to misread the opera’s
intentions in this scene, and to expect to find a plot develop­
ing. There is no plot— other than the themes mentioned pre­
viously— and the purpose of the scene is to show the Queen in
typical incidents and relationships. The Prelude recalls both
the fight between Essex and Mountjoy and the “ Essex
favour” arpeggios. The Queen reveals these topics to be the
subjects of her thoughts. Cecil— to whom she reveals them—
is an interesting figure in the drama; the hunchback secretary
Elizabeth trusted in preference to her merely decorative young
men. His “ Song of Government” is apt historically and a
miracle of onomatopoeia musically, with a creeping “ twos
against threes” accompaniment which can only be described
as shifty, and a vocal line that is busy without getting any­
where. Before this, the Queen sang a “ Queen-ship” song over
a repeated six-note accompanying figure
e x . 43
GLORIANA III

This figure is now distorted

e x . 44

when Cecil introduces “ cares of state” to the Queen’s atten­

tion. The opera assumes that the audience will know that the
situation with Spain was a typical— if not perpetual— “ care”
for the Queen, rather than an incident to be developed. When
Essex enters, and Cecil leaves, the “ cares of state” motif still
dominates the accompaniment. The Earl’s first, gay lute song
cannot dislodge it.
The second lute song, which will surely always be the most
famous number in the opera, is a detached as well as detach­
able piece; unlike Raleigh’s and Cecil’s songs, but like the
first lute song, it is isolated from the conversation level of the
drama in being a conscious art song. Nevertheless its context
gives it added meanings— it is the Queen’s escape from “ cares
of state” and it is also her romantic dream: “ spirit us both
away” . It acquires a further richness when we know it to be
written by the historical Earl of Essex— this historical realism
also applies to many of the Queen’s speeches. But a poem is
more in touch with the personality of the writer than either
public speech or reported conversation. (Yet we cannot but
agree with Elizabeth when she declares: “ ’tis a conceit, it is
not you” ; Essex had numerous opportunities to “ retire” when
troubles at court became dangerous, but he could not live
without both royal and popular esteem. In the most brilliant
sentence of his book, Strachey wrote, of Francis Bacon, “ it is
almost always disastrous not to be a poet” — disaster certainly
overwhelmed Essex when he ceased to be one.) The style of
the whole opera runs a risk— the risk of coming too near to
pastiche in casting a twentieth-century eye over the musical
112 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B RI T T E N

language of an earlier period. The risk is justified when this

intensely lovely song is a result. It is set in a dark C minor
which effectively withdraws it from the bright keys of public
life even for anyone as insensitive in general to actual keys as
the average audience and the author. In disjointed phrases
the music illuminates the conventional erotic imagery with a
radiance which might well have warmed Elizabeth :
e x . 45
E ssex

Where, when he dies, his tomb might be a

The opera moves from one melodic joy to another—

Elizabeth and Essex have an enchanting duet (“ O heretofore
Though ringed with foes . . That this is all an escapist’s
dream is emphasised when the Queen dismisses Essex with the
“ cares of state” motif. Elizabeth invokes her relationship with
her people— who materialises in a quotation of the homage
theme on the trombones— to negate Essex’s influence. The
musical style of her characterisation is extended by this prayer
— first recited, then delivered in a tense, limited, plainsong­
like theme. Already in the first act we are involved in a vast
canvas.
GLORI AN A ” 3

The second act is the most obviously balanced of the three :

two contrasted public scenes enclosing an intimate one;
daylight, moonlight, candlelight. In the outer scenes we find
a kind portrait of the Queen, an unkind one and a puzzling
one; homage offered to her and honours bestowed by her.
After the public and private language of the first act we are
now introduced to provincial speech. It would have been an
incomplete picture of the age without some reference to the
immensely stage-worthy entertainments offered to the Queen
on progress.*
In the preceding scene, descending perfect fourths were
associated with royal duty, descending and augmented with
royal cares. The prelude to this scene, and the “ hurrahs!” of
the people of Norwich, bristle with ascending perfect fourths
which can be identified with royal recreation. The incident
with the elderly Recorder shows the Queen at her most
benign, indulging in the love-affair with a nation which was
her ideal of monachy. Essex is jealous as well as bored. And
Cecil rebukes him, refering to the homage theme, “ to be on
progress with her Majesty, is that no honour to you now?”
The masque is a splendid reinterpretation of madrigal
style. Sheer delight at the fresh melodic lines and rhythmic
variety again dismisses any thoughts of pastiche. It is also a
kind of relaxation to have a completed episode: the scenes
and incidents in the first act were all fragments ; without some
* E. S. Turner, in T h e Court o f S t J a m es’ s, gives this account of a Norwich
visit: “At Norwich the mayor addressed the Queen in Latin. This time
she did not feel it incumbent on her to reply in the same tongue. Bad
weather preserved her from a speech by “King Gurgunt, sometime King
of England”, but Commonwealth treated her to a rhymed disquisition
on weaving. Norwich also devised a charade in which Chastity set about
Cupid and turned him out of his coach, then came up to congratulate
the Queen on retaining her virginity. In the background Wantonness and
Riot flitted enviously. Chastity’s maids-in-waiting, Modesty, Temper­
ance, Good Exercise and Shamefastness, then sang a ditty to prove that
“chaste life for loss of pleasures short doth win immortal praise”, and
that “chaste life hath merry moods and soundly taketh rest”, and “lewd
life cuts off his days”. A bevy of nymphs were scheduled to pop out of
caves to greet the Queen, but rain stopped play.”
II4 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

historical knowledge on the part of the audience they could

seem unsatisfying rather than meaningful. The masque
satisfies the desire for spectacle, which was frustrated by the
off-stage tournament, and the desire for a self-sufficient
episode which neither the Cecil interview nor the Essex
situation meet.
The masque is, however, patently unreal; the jousting, a
replica of warfare; Essex’s devotion, a mirage projected by
the Queen’s own mind. The opera has so far been an artifice,
the illusion of reality sustained by the smooth working of the
puppets. From this point in the opera, Act II, Scene 2, three
characters emerge who act entirely spontaneously: Mountjoy
(in many ways a new man since his reconciliation with Essex
in the first scene of Act I), Penelope Rich, Essex’s sister (the
“ Stella” of Sir Philip Sidney’s sonnets), and Lady Essex—
the only wholly sympathetic character in the opera. The
absence of Gloriana and her court makes for a ravishing
change of tone colour in this moonlit garden scene— flutes,
celesta, and pizzicato muted strings. Mountjoy and Penelope,
for whom this is an assignation, have a tender, lyrical scene
which seems, however, pale, restrained and unimpassioned
after the exposition of a love between a people and their
sovereign. Essex and Lady Essex enter, unaware of the lovers.
A clarinet and bass clarinet change the colour to the thicker,
darker tone of Essex’s ambition. (Clarinets accompany the
“ Lord Deputy in Ireland” appointment; they are also con­
spicuous when he returns from Ireland, when the Ballad
Singer foretells the “ dreadful danger” of his rebellion; and
when Lady Essex, Penelope, and Mountjoy plead for him in
tha last act.) His present music strides in impatient dotted
minor ninths—

essex : Whatever step I take the Queen will bar my way.

lady essex: The Queen knows your valour!
e s s e x : She knoweth not how quick my patience ebbs.
GLORIANA II5
lady essex: A subject must obey.
essex : Caprice, rebuff, delay . . .

The couples meet and, impotently restrained by Lady Essex,

plot treasonably “ ourselves to rule the land” . Essex was a
potential traitor almost by virtue of his rank: “ the spirit of
ancient feudalism was not quite exhausted. Once more before
the reign was over, it flamed up, embodied in a single
individual— Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex. The flame was
glorious— radiant with the colours of antique knighthood and
the flashing gallantries of the past; but no substance fed it;
flaring wildly, it tossed to and fro in the wind ; it was suddenly
put out.” Essex was, in fact, too weak a character to be a
serious threat to the throne even in his final abortive attempt
chronicled in the last act. Mountjoy was a more worldly figure,
plotting with Essex when success seemed possible, refusing to
carry out their wilder schemes when failure became apparent.
Penelope is a splendidly drawn character as far as the opera
is concerned : the family failing of excessive pride turns to a
shrewish but thoughtless eagerness to spur on her men to
disaster.
Act II, Scene 3, is in several ways the apparent counterpart
of Scene 1 : the court at home, after the court on progress;
the “ town” dances after the rustic masque; the “ real”
music (performed on stage) of these dances, compared with
“ real” madrigals. All seems set for another scene the function
of which is pageantry and colour. But it has a surprising result.
Through the medium of the “ public” style of this scene and
undistracted by the resplendent visual element emerges a more
revealing portrait of the Queen than has yet appeared in the
“ private” scenes. And the character which is shown is a
further surprise.
The Queen’s attitude to the women about her was so
arbitrary and fierce that not to have included it would have
been a distortion. Plomer transfers the episode of the dress
Il6 THE O PERA S OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

from Lady Mary Howard, with whom Essex had a liaison at

this time, to Lady Essex. (An account of Essex’s minor
promiscuities would have detracted from the dramatic enact­
ing of his pretended love for Elizabeth.)
The court dances are revenants from the sixteenth century
to a greater extent than the madrigals— less of a rethinking,
closer to pastiche. Nevertheless the La Volta is an appropriate
tune for the burlesque treatment of it when the Queen appears,
grotesquely, in Lady Essex’s dress
ex. 46

with added trombone miaows ! There is a moving ensemble

for the four conspirators, of Scene 2, when the Queen has
gone: “ Good Frances, do not weep” . All the music sung by
and about Lady Essex displays this tender, womanly style,
in revealing contrast with the Queen’s style. Where Essex’s
true affections lie is made plain both by this ensemble and by
his outburst at the end of it— “ [The Queen’s] conditions are as
crooked as her carcass!” But he is soon to be disarmed. The
Queen returns with her Council in full dignity. The notes to
which he sang “ her conditions . . .” persist, suspiciously,
throughout the Queen’s preamble until she announces that
she has made him “ Lord Deputy in Ireland” — the “ favour
now for every fool” phrase.
The apposition of these two incidents is a strong dramatic
stroke. We are, as I have said, surprised to find such an
intimate exposure of Elizabeth’s weaknesses in such a public
G L O RI ANA II7

scene. They by no means cancel each other out. The first

incident is very understandable, although repulsive. The
second— the appointment of Essex to Ireland— is puzzling.
On the surface it is a gesture of generosity, to make amends
for the dress incident. It is also an admission of weakness—
“ your plainings I can ne’er refuse” — Elizabeth certainly
made the appointment against her better judgement. It
might subconciously have been a trap: “ Exalted high among
his peers, he may at last more steeply fall.” Contrary to the
apparent implication of the disposition of the Elizabeth and
Essex conversations in the opera— there are none in this act—
the first act is now seen to be an exposition of the typical, the
second a development of the personal manner of the Queen.
The spectacle of dancing was a minor theme unifying the
second act. Two of the third-act scenes are linked by the
portrayal of gossip— the function of this is to spread the effect
and implications of Essex’s behaviour so that the Queen (like
Vere in Billy Budd) cannot make a private decision about it.
Act III, Scene 1, opens with the Maids of Honour in fluttering
chatter:
What news from Ireland ? What news from Ireland ?
Delay, delay: a sorry farce!
The summer wasted then a truce !
It is a delicate but worldly picture of the women’s environ­
ment, showing them living at second hand because of their
closely guarded position, identifying themselves, but not
uncritically, with the Queen.
Essex bursts in upon this harem, a larger-than-life figure,
“ wildlooking and travelstained, his hand on his sword” . It is
a breath of reality in their second-hand world. But when
Essex forces his way in upon the Queen, she, “ wearing an old,
plain dressing-gown . . . as yet without her wig” , is the
reality and Essex shrinks to the stature of a romantic gesture.
His subdued greeting:
ii 8 THE O PERA S OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

ex. 47
E ssex

Queen____________ of my life!

is an echo, lower by a major ninth, of his exuberant cry in the

lute song scene, but he soon rekindles his “ flashing gallantries
of the past” in expanding phrases. In contrast to this the
Queen’s music is dignified and direct:
e x . 48

After a brief quarrel Essex tries to invoke the lute song (pre­
faced by another appeal “ Queen of my life” , this time at the
original pitch and screwed up with the original tense har­
monies beneath it). The repeated heavy C minor chords
cannot reawaken the Queen’s love— or weakness— and they
sing “ Happy were we” in an intensity of regret. It is the last
GLORIANA H9

thing we hear Essex sing. Aptly, the extended cadence is inter­

rupted by the “ cares of state” theme. To its notes, the Queen
dismisses Essex to “ eat, drink and refresh you . . We
cannot know that this very temporary dismissal is the occasion
of our seeing Essex for the last time. It is full of hope. The
condemned Essex is deliberately excluded from the stage in
case his tragedy either alienates our sympathy for or distracts
our attention from Gloriana herself.
A minor version of the homage theme (muted trombone)
perhaps indicates the Queen’s acceptance of the “ cares of
state” ; it is with the same (transposed) notes that she rejected
Essex’s love in her soliloquy in the first act, in favour of the
burden and glory of sovereignty, and, in this same version, in
the last scene of the opera she defends her right to execute
Essex to Essex’s wife: “ A Prince is set upon a stage Alone in
sight of all the world, Alone and must not fail.”
This weighty and highly significant music is soothed away
in “ The Dressing Table Song” : superb lyrical relief, and
restoration of the harem environment, so that Cecil’s sub­
sequent entrance contrasts in its propriety with Essex’s
intrusion. The major opening of the homage theme makes its
own contrast with the minor one discussed above. There is a
nice historical touch when Elizabeth sings, “ What fear is, I
never knew” , which we are probably intended to set against
Essex on the scaffold, who confessed that “ more than once, in
battle, he had ‘felt the weakness of the flesh, and therefore in
this great conflict desired God to assist and strengthen him’
The music returns to the “ cares” motif at the Queen’s “ What
say our faithful eyes and ears ?” as it did in Act I. This phrase
is incorporated in “ Cecil’s Report” , a typically busy and
unsensational number.
There is a new reminiscence in the “ Discussion” that
follows: the interlocked fifths to which the Queen sang
“ Victory and Peace” when she appointed Essex lord Deputy,
are reversed in her phrase “ think of the waste, count up the
120 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

cost” . The original falling shape of the fifths is roughly

delineated in the brass accompaniment to this passage, and
permeates the recitative of “ The Queen’s Decision” . Predict­
ably the “ cares of state” accompany the breaking of Essex, at
the close of the scene. It is a balanced construction: the
informal feminine chatter preceding Essex’s informal inter­
view with the Queen; the formal “ Dressing Table Song”
preparing for Cecil’s official conversation. Now, in the third
act, every time we see the Queen it is in unique and specific
situations, which are conducted in the “ private” language of
the opera. The dramatic shape of the work is beginning to
emerge : the Queen’s character was displayed in the first act
and developed in the second— the portrait is now becoming
detailed and focused.
However, the next scene is probably the most difficult to
absorb, musically and dramatically, in the opera. Its chief
importance is historical : Essex’s last half-hearted attempt at
treachery, in which the action follows Strachey very closely,
even to the extent of making the would-be revolutionaries
shout the syllables “ Saw! Tray!” as Strachey describes. We
do not see Essex leading his ragged band ; because of this the
scene falls into place as being background, rather than
incident; and we may well feel that this is too late in the
drama for another look around at the general scene. On the
other hand, it is part of the intentional moving away from
Essex as a person, and restores Elizabeth’s subjects to the
foreground.
The scene is a street in the City of London. A blind Ballad
Singer disseminates the news of Essex’s rebellion, with current
developments fed him by his boy, to the Old Men— the male
counterpart of the Maids of Honour. The whole scene is a
Rondo, the verses of the ballad dominating and enclosing the
score. The musical style is a little confusing here : if the lute
song was closer to Purcell than Dowland, this ballad is out of
Elizabeth’s generation by a wider margin. It is an eighteenth-
GL ORI AN A 121

century-shaped tune, which might almost have come from

The Beggar's Opera :
ex . 49
Very freely

To bind by force, to bolt with bars The won-der of this_ age & They

tried in vain, they could not curb The li - on in his— rage: Great

Rhythmic ^

*** M*Lf 9 f-p l[-f PT P \0 PÙ p -J

need had he Of li - ber-ty, And now- haihboun-ded from__ his cage------

The only other substantial material in the scene is the chorus

for the rabble of boys, “ Now rouse up all the city” — another
clear, square, definite tune reminiscent this time of the
snappy, memorable children’s music in Noye. For this scene
Britten has suspended the heroic style of the main drama for a
very specialised and isolated (the colourless CufFe is the only
character in it we have seen before) glance at another face of
this varied age.
There are, however, two devices which help to incorporate
it in the dramatic progress— the parallel portrayals of gossip
have been mentioned, and, perhaps more immediately per­
ceptible, the continuity of tone colour between the predomi­
nantly low male voices of the street scene and those of the
Council at Whitehall which open the next scene. The trom­
bones announce the infinitely sad phrase “ Essex is guilty and
condemned to die !” Back among his peers we feel this to be a
tragedy: in the street scene it was merely “ news” . Strachey
graphically depicts the reasons for the Queen’s horror at her
words “ To die a traitor. Ah!” — even though this revolting
sentence could not apply to one of Essex’s rank. “ Cecil’s
Warning” (“ Do not defer this dreadful duty” ) has a double
 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

echo from Act I, Scene 2— there his counsel was ‘‘procrastina­

tion . . . silence and delay” ; here his only fear is of delay in
signing Essex’s death-warrant. He sings his Warning to the
notes of the Queen’s prayer in that earlier scene, but what
sounded ecstatic in Elizabeth’s self-dedication to duty sounds
petty and nagging in Cecil’s song.
The Council are dismissed to a last canonic trombone
statement of “ Essex is guilty” . The Queen’s aria which
follows reveals the passion she really has for Essex and the
regretful caution which tempers it. It is vivid, noble music,
an aria which could not have occurred any earlier in the
opera, so gradually and progressively has her character been
developed. Penelope, Lady Essex, and Mountjoy now come to
plead for Essex. The smooth arpeggio movement of the melo­
dic lines recalls the conspiracy scene and “ Good Frances, do
not weep” , and their unanimity of emotion contrasts with the
Queen’s dilemma. “ Lady Essex^s Pleading” is urgent and
informal— over a persistent two-note phrase on Essex’s
characteristic clarinets. The Queen makes two replies— as a
Prince, in the minor-key version of the homage theme she
defends her right to condemn Essex; as a woman, in a simple
scale-wise passage she promises to protect his children. The
passage is so short that we can easily miss the fact that the
opera has been developing towards the point where these
contrasted answers both seem equally and utterly character­
istic of Elizabeth.
Penelope’s pleading is so thoroughly miscalculated that we
realise with a sense of shock that we, by now, know the Queen
better than she— a contemporary— does. It begins as if it is to
be a large-scale (for the proportions of this work) aria, with
brilliant brass and the sweeping “ favour” theme in the “ out
of favour” version we last heard in “ Good Frances” : “ The
noble Earl of Essex Was born to fame and fortune . . . ”
The dotted movement is interrupted when the Queen replies,
“ He touched my sceptre, Then he was too great To be en­
GLORIANA 123

dured.” Essex’s influence, which still distorts her judgement,

must be responsible for making the Queen descend to making
explanations to Penelope in this manner. But when Lady
Rich implies the Earl’s independence of the throne— “ Still
great he would have been, Without the grace and favour of
a Queen!” — Elizabeth dismisses her pleading in the music of
the dilemma aria into which the episode now flows. Penelope
throws out insensitive attempts to arrest the Queen’s anger:
“ He most deserves your pardon Deserves your love” , but
before the movement ends the Queen signs the warrant.
The frenzied scalic movement of the dilemma aria explodes
in a fortissimo statement of the second lute song which be­
comes the musical unit of the Epilogue. This implies a lot.
Strachey hints at dating the Queen’s decay from the time of
Essex’s death: “ The great reign continued for two years
longer, but the pulses of action had grown feeble; and over
public affairs there hovered a cloud of weariness and suspense
. . . Elizabeth had resisted the first onslaughts of rage and
grief with the utmost bravery, but an inevitable reaction
followed, and, as the full consciousness of what had happened
pressed in upon her, her nervous system began to give way
. . . she still worked on at the daily business of government,
though at times there were indications that the habits of a
lifetime were disintegrating, and she was careless, or forgetful,
as she had never been before. To those who watched her it
almost seemed as if the inner spring were broken, and that
the mechanism continued to act by the mere force of momen­
tum . . . she sat alone, amid emptiness and ashes, bereft of
the one thing in the whole world that was worth having. And
she herself, with her own hand, had cast it from her, had
destroyed it . . .”
It is this sitting alone amid emptiness and ashes, this
decline into regret and waking dreams, that Britten and
Plomer depict so movingly in the melodrama of the Epilogue.
Between the phrases of the lute song, scenes from the last days
124 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

of Elizabeth’s life are spoken, spoken for the most part in

actual recorded words which gives an extra layer of intensity
to this already tense ending. As her death approaches, the
music reaches the bars quoted in Ex. 45— the image of copula­
tion becomes the bodily death of the Queen. The music fades
into the last, off-stage, statement of the Homage chorus. The
style of the Epilogue is one more part of the immense diversity
of language in this diffuse and wide-ranging opera. Like many
aspects of the opera, it is a risk— and it succeeds splendidly.
One result is an immense tribute to the opera— we find the
words of the historical Queen completely consistent with the
character of the operatic portrait.
 Chapter seven

The Turn o f the Screw

 Libretto by Myfanwy Piper from the story by Henry James.
First performed September 1954, Teatro La Fenice, Venice.

CHARACTERS
THE GOVERNESS Jennifer Vyvyan, soprano
MRS g r o s e , the housekeeper Joan Cross, soprano
p r o l o g u e a nd q u i n t , former man-
servant, a ghost Peter Pears, tenor
miss j e s s e l , former governess, a ghost Arda Mandikian, soprano
Olive Dyer, soprano
David Hemmings, treble

Scenery: John Piper

Producer: Basil Coleman
Technical Adviser: Michael Northen ^
Director of Musical Studies : Hans Oppenheim
General Manager: Basil Douglas
SYNOPSIS

a c t i, p r o l o g u e : The Prologue reveals the source of the

story, “ written in faded ink— a woman’s hand” , and explains
how, at about the middle of the last century, the Governess
came to take complete responsibility for the two children at
Bly, a country house.

scene i : The Journey. The Governess has misgivings about

her lonely position, which she has taken only because she is in
love with the children’s guardian.

scene 2: The Welcome. She arrives and meets Mrs Grose,

the housekeeper, and the two children, Miles and Flora.

scene 3 : The Letter. A letter arrives to inform the Governess

that Miles has been expelled from his school.

scene 4: The Tower. A summer evening; the Governess sees

a figure on the Tower. She immediately thinks it is the
guardian, but as she sees him fully she realises that it is a
stranger.

s c e n e 5 : The Window. The Governess sees the stranger again,

at the window. She describes him to Mrs Grose, who decides
from the description that it is Peter Quint, a former valet who
had exerted an evil influence over the household, particularly
over the previous governess, Miss Jessel, and Miles— until his
death: the Governess only now realises that she has seen a
ghost.

scene 6: The Lesson. The Governess watches Miles closely

to discover signs of Quint’s influence, and is disconcerted by
128 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

what appears to be an uncharacteristic mood, revealed in the

Maio song,

scene 7: The Lake. The Governess and Flora are by the

lake, in the park. The Governess is again alert to suspect Flora
of awareness of the ghosts. She sees an apparition of Miss
Jessel on the other side of the lake, and believes Flora has
seen it, too.

scene 8: At Night. The children are discovered in com­

munion with the ghosts.

act ii, s c e n e 1: Colloquy and Soliloquy. Quint and Miss

Jessel, “ nowhere” , plot the moral destruction of the children.
The Governess faces her dilemma— uncertain of what is true
and what is imagined, and isolated by her friendless position
and the guardian’s condition forbidding correspondence be­
tween them.

scene 2: The Bells. It is a Sunday and before morning

service. Outside the church Miles challenges the Governess—
“ Does my uncle think what you think?” She decides to abro­
gate her responsibilities and leave Bly.

s c e n e 3: Miss Jessel. The Governess returns to the school­

room; she finds Miss Jessel sitting at her desk. Filled now
with indignation against the ghosts, rather than frustration
with the children, she writes to their guardian: “ I have not
forgotten your charge of silence, but there are things that you
must know.”

scene 4: The Bedroom. The Governess tells Miles that she

has written to his guardian. Just when she is leading Miles
towards a confession, Quint’s voice is heard, dominating and
threatening Miles. The candle goes out (Quint, Miles, or an
accident ?) and the interview is at an end.
THE T U RN OF THE SCREW 129
scene 5: Quint. Urged by Quint, Miles takes the letter.

scene 6: The Piano. Miles entertains the Governess and

Mrs Grose at the piano while Flora disappears.

scene 7: Flora. The Governess and Mrs Grose find Flora by

the lake. The Governess accuses her of having been with Miss
Jessel. Flora denies this and Mrs Grose cannot see the appari­
tion.

scene 8: Miles. After a night of Flora’s dreams, Mrs Grose,

now convinced of some precocious evil in the girl, takes her
away to her guardian. The Governess and Miles remain at
Bly, and in spite of Quint’s materialisation, Miles comes near
to confessing all. Quint and the Governess do battle over
him, and as the boy names Quint he (Miles) collapses in the
Governess’s arms, dead.
The Turn of the Screw was first performed in Venice in Septem­
ber 1954, the fifth of Britten’s chamber operas, to a libretto
by Myfanwy Piper from Henry James’s story. Like many of
Britten’s operas, it opens with a Prologue; but the frame is
not completed. With an asymmetry rare in any of his works,
Britten deliberately leaves the end unspoken as it is in the
story— a dramatic device the effect of which we can only assess
when we have lived through the suspense of this incredibly
gripping work.
It opens, then, with a Prologue : a tenor narrator, accom­
panied only by the piano, sets the scene in the most matter-
of-fact style :
e x . 50

P rologue

It is a curious sto-ry. I have it writ-ten in fa-dcd ink.

(How impossible it is, even with quotations, to convey the

effect of music in words : I challenge anyone to explain why
the opening arpeggios sound nostalgic and equally I defy
anyone to say that they are not!) One moment in the accom­
THE T URN OF THE SCREW I3 I

paniment draws attention to itself, both by a sudden pianissimo

and by a change of pattern— at the words “ she was to do
everything, be responsible for everything, not to worry him
at all, no, not to write . . . ” the piano plays rising fourths—
a vital interval throughout the opera, here, conspicuous be­
cause it is different form the rest of the style of the piano
writing in the Prologue.
The scene is set: the governess is engaged to take charge
of the two children; and she is forbidden to “ worry” her
employer— with whom she has fallen instantly in love— with
any communication. At this point the opera starts : with the
actual words of her consent (“ At last, T will,5 she said” ), the
orchestra unfolds the Theme which with its fifteen formal
variations and sixteen informal ones provides the musical
material of the opera. The scheme of the opera is unconven­
tional and can be seen from this plan :

PROLOGUE ACT II
 132 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

Variation V I Variation X IV
{Scene 7 { Scene 7

Variation V II Variation X V
{ Scene 8 {Scene 8
I have bracketed the orchestral variations with the scenes
with which they are continuous— many are also continuous
with the preceding scenes, but they are invariably connected
in mood and usually in matter with the scenes that follow
them.
The Theme

ex. 51
Very slow

is a “ twelve-note” theme— which is the least important aspect

of it in the way it is used in the opera. It consists of a two-bar
phrase, its inversion on another set of notes, and a sequence of
the inversion. The prominent intervals are rising fourths and
dropping fifths. In a way it serves as the orchestral overture
(the Prologue being the verbal introduction) with its “ French
Overture” double dots and ensuing quick movement which
uses the rising fourths to dominate the bass line over which a
theme is tentatively stated (< fortissimo, but hidden by the effect
of the perpetual motion and hammering rhythm)— a theme
which is to become as important to the vocal scenes as Ex. 51
is to the orchestral variations. The bass line (timpani) con­
tinues into Scene 1 : “ The Journey” .
The Governess is travelling in a coach towards Bly, ex­
pressing her fears and doubts about the situation she has
accepted, in short phrases above the continuous pattern of
horses’ hoofs in the bass. Her fears and the music intensify
THE T URN OF THE SCREW *33
when she comes to the verbal point which was made signi­
ficant in the Prologue: “ Whatever happens it is I, I must
decide. A strange world for a stranger’s sake” — then at a
sudden pianissimo the perpetual motion stops and the Gover­
ness sings the important theme that barely emerged from the
rhythmic hammering that introduced the scene :

e x . 52
G overness

Oh why,-------------------------- why----------did I come?— .

It appears in various guises throughout the opera, linked

structurally with the Ex. 51 Theme by its filled-in descending
and rising fourths, but it belongs essentially to the scenes, not
the variation-interludes. When it appears in the orchestra it
has the effect of being in quotation marks. It undergoes
numerous changes of rhythm, but usually has a feeling of
impassioned spontaneity which characterises it on this appear­
ance. It cannot be called a motif in that it is not associated
with any single “ meaning” , although different versions of it
become the personal fingerprints of Quint, Mrs Grose, and
the Governess. It is the very essence of the drama : the situa­
tion at Bly brought about by the arrival of the Governess.
To it she sings, “ Oh, why, why did I come?” This theme,
which I shall call the Dramatic Theme, reveals gradually
throughout the opera that the drama only comes into being
because the Governess comes to Bly. We have already seen
that the opera starts significantly not with the situation at
Bly but with the Governess’s consenting to go there.
The first variation is an uncomplicated movement gradu­
ally gathering speed as the children become more impatient
to see their Governess. Superimposed fourths are gradually
built up and become the prevalent chords in Scene 2 : “ The
*34 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

Welcome” . The children are instantly characterised— as much

by what Mrs Grose sings as by their own music. They are
surely Britten’s most successful operatic children; “ period” ,
like the other characters, but incredibly natural in spite of
their “ possession” . Britten and Myfanwy Piper bustle through
this scene with a bright daylight, straightforward atmosphere
which changes conspicuously when the Governess enters and
the strings play the Dramatic Theme to underline the fact
that it is her arrival that is to be the catalyst. The scene ends
with an ensemble in which Mrs Grose and the children con­
tinue to bustle and the Governess sings a lovely expansive
melody of interlocking thirds and fourths. She is already trans­
ferring her love for the children’s guardian to the house and
park, as she later transfers it to Miles. Earlier, “ A strange
world for a stranger’s sake” — and already “ Bly is now my
home!”
The second variation is, like the first, concerned with the
children and takes up the rhythm of their exuberant welcome
over an extension of the Governess’s melody in the last
ensemble, emphasising the connection between its intervals
and the Theme. The third scene opens calmly, but soon the
first news to shatter the Governess’s idyll arrives. It is a com­
plicated moment in the drama: to a first-time audience the
fact available is that when the Governess reveals that Miles
has been expelled from his school the high viola plays the
Dramatic Theme, underlining the general uneasiness of the
situation; to those who have already heard further on in the
opera the celesta motif that colours the first note of this theme
is an ironic comment on Mrs Grose’s “ We were far too long
alone” — for the celesta represents the presence of Quint.
While Mrs Grose and the Governess are trying to disbelieve
the unwelcome letter we see the children singing “ Lavenders
Blue” — a piece of exaggerated innocence that reassures the
grown-ups— and the Governess resolves (to rising fourths) not
to write to the guardian to report the dismissal.
THE T U RN OF THE SCREW *35

Variation III is “ sweet summer” — an enchanting tone

picture which lulls the audience’s apprehensions as the nursery
rhyme lulled the Governess’s. It is musically continuous with
Scene 4, “ The Tower” . The three phrases of the Theme are
transformed into bird-call cadenzas and they are never again
in the opera to be heard in so innocent a setting. Again the
librettist picks up the word “ alone” to use ironically when
the character is, in fact, anything but alone. This time it is
once more followed by the celesta and now by the apparition
of Quint on the Tower. The Governess at first thinks she has
seen the children’s guardian of whom she has been thinking:
not until she has looked fully at him does she realise that it
isn’t he. She sings:
e x . 53
G overness

Who is it? W h o ? __

to an important phrase which tends to recur when she sees

the ghosts. The rising fourth is compressed into a shudder
and at the same time asks a question which is answered for
her not by Quint but by Miles— but this is later.
The grotesque march that is Variation IV seems at first to
be imbued with the “ Who is it?” shudder, but it is trans­
formed in Scene 5 (“ The Window” ) into an unlikely accom­
paniment to “ Tom, Tom, the Piper’s son” . This nursery
rhyme is sandwiched between two appearances of Quint (as
it fades away, he appears at the window, again accompanied
by the celesta sound), so that we feel it is at least likely that
the children have seen him. When the Governess sees him
this time it is the orchestra which asks her question “ who is
it?” while Mrs Grose elicits a description of Quint from her.
Their conversation is punctuated by the orchestral question
which fills the Governess’s mind.
 136 T HE O PERA S OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

The next part of the scene— Mrs Grose’s narration— is

dominated by the phrase:
ex. 54
Slow and broad
M r s . G rosb

V L Ž fr M l I| I Q 1 1 1 1, I l .1 > I'l
Dear----- God, is there no end— to his dread » fui ways?

which is her personal version of the Dramatic Theme and

conveys the enacting of the tragedy as it is understood— in
a limited way— by her. It is a revelation to the Governess
that Quint is dead. She replies, over an agonised version of
the Dramatic Theme in major sevenths, “ I know nothing of
these things, Is this sheltered place the wicked world Where
things unspoken of can be ?” Later she resolves to protect the
children— in an important rhythmic variation of the Dramatic
Theme :
e x . 55
G overness

See------- what I see, know__ what I know, that they may see_______ and know no - thing—

which is later associated with her intention and its failure.

Variation V (like I, II and IV) contrasts the apparently
uncomplicated world of the children with the problems and
doubts of the adults. It is a brisk £ march from which the
tune of Miles’s mnemonic song gradually emerges to be sung
vigorously in Scene 6, “ The Lesson” . It seems that this song
represents the normal world in which the Governess believes
Miles to be living; his second mnemonic song is unexpected
stylistically— we have only heard him in this “ normal” en­
vironment of the Welcome, the nursery rhymes, and the first
mnemonic. Now he sings :
THE T URN OF THE SCREW l 37
EX. 56
Slowly moving
M iles pp ___—

y *4 £ T n ' lT T " 1 l u ì I'M r p r~if

Ma - lo, Ma - lo, Ma - lo I would ra - ther be -

4% p r'~rf ì if ] 1J 1 p
naughty boy------- Ma lo Ma - Io in ad. - ver - si - ty.__ _

Its impact is disturbing, but difficult to define. Certainly it

shows hidden depths in Miles— the style of the music, not the
words. Certainly the defiance of his “ I found it, I like it, do
you?” is sung to the music in which he later challenges the
Governess with his “ badness” (“ you see, I am bad” , Scene 8
of the first act; and “ Twas I who blew it, dear” in Act II,
Scene 4). Possibly, however, the song represents the ambiva­
lence of his character, not his “ possession” by Quint: “ I
would rather be . . . in an apple tree . . . than a naughty
boy . . .” — does this song reveal Miles as an unwilling victim ?
Variation V I effects a link between phrases of the “ Maio”
song and Flora’s complementary scene, “ The Lake” . This
shows unsuspected depths in Flora. After a fragment of a
reciting song, paralleling Miles’s, she startles the Governess
by naming the lake in the park “ The Dead Sea” , though
half-reassuring her by declaring “ I wouldn’t go in it and
neither would Miles” — at this point the oboe refers to “ Maio”
emphasising the close symapthy between the children. Flora
then sings a lullaby for her doll which is capable of several
interpretations : there is an element of spell-casting about the
phrase “ Dolly must sleep wherever I choose” , which we
remember when later to the same music Flora lulls Mrs Grose
to sleep in order to slip out to be with Miss Jessel. Flora’s doll,
138 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

in this light, takes on the aspect of a “ familiar55 and it is

ominous that we see her clutching the doll when she goes
away at the end of the opera. She sings a fantastic lullaby
that does nothing to destroy the impression of magic. The
stage directions are important here— Flora “ turns round
deliberately to face the audience as Miss Jessel appears at the
other side of the lake55— until the next scene we have no proof
that the children are communicating with the ghosts, although
we do see the ghosts patently pursuing the children. The
Governess, however, thinks Flora has seen the ghost. The
timpani shout her question “ Who is it?55 (Ex. 53) as she
hurries Flora away, and she sings the version of the Dramatic
Theme in which she expressed her resolve to protect the
children (Ex. 55) to the words “ I neither save nor shield
them, I keep nothing from them, O, I am useless55. From
this point in the opera this rhythmic version of the theme is
associated with her failure rather than her intention to suc­
ceed in protecting the children. At the end of the scene she
sings,

ex. 57
G overness

They are losi !— lost ! —

the dropping fourth filled in with a portamento, anticipating

with a deep verbal and musical significance the new variant
of the Dramatic Theme which appears in the next variation
and scene.
The celesta ushers in Variation V II before the Governess
has finished singing. In a dialogue between the celesta and
the gong (which characterises the appearances of Miss Jessel)
across a horn statement of the Theme of the variations we
feel the forces gathering for the act finale. The result is very
beautiful music for a conversation between “ horrors55. In the
THE T U RN OF THE SCREW *39

following scene, which opens with Quint’s cadenza-like varia­

tion of the Dramatic Theme, we hear him seduce Miles with
music of sensuous enchantment :
e x . 58

Throughout the opera we hear Quint only through Miles’s

ears. If Quint were intended to be a figment of the Gover­
ness’s imagination— which is a possible interpretation of the
Henry James story and has been used in a production of
this opera which I have not seen— then surely we would
hear him through the Governess’s ears, as a menace, not a
hero. Miles responds to Quint with phrases characterised by
the falling portamento; he seizes upon the easily attractive
words “ gold” , “ secrets” — obviously not fully understanding
the compact that is offered him.
Miss Jessel appears, too, her music sharply differing from
Quint’s in its deeply tragic line. She is the concrete evidence
of the threat of Quint: his earlier, discarded victim. There is
a continuity in the actions of Quint the man and Quint the
ghost that contradicts the idea that it is the supernatural in
the drama that is frightening. The ghost of Quint is a “ devil”
because Quint was one when he was alive. Miss Jessel isn’t:
she is a tragedy, though we must believe, if we are aware of
Flora’s fate as presenting the “ extra turn of the screw” , that
she is as menacing to Flora as Quint is to Miles. Her melodic
line is full of heavy minor sevenths, graceless beside Quint’s.
Flora responds in the same way that Miles does. This scene is
indeed the climax of the Act— for the first time in the opera
we are sure of the situation: we see the children and the
140 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B RI T T E N

ghosts together, we also see the real conflict begin with the
intervention of Mrs Grose and the Governess, swelling the
ensemble momentarily to an unusually thick block of sound.
The Theme of the interludes is heard in the bass. The ghosts
disappear to the “ who is it?” phrase which Miles answers,
musically and dramatically—
e x . 59
Sim ply
Miles

Y o u see - I am bad, I am bad.

The second act begins with a substantial introduction,

Variation V III. Between swelling, sustained chords, indi­
vidual instruments and pairs of instruments have free cad­
enzas, mostly based on phrases we have heard in Act I— for
example, the (literally) haunting canon based on the phrase
“ The long sighing flight of the night wing’d bird” from the
last scene of Act I. The variation ends with a timpani state­
ment of the Theme. Scene 1 takes place “ nowhere” and is a
colloquy between Quint and Miss Jessel, followed by a
soliloquy for the Governess. Quint spurns Miss Jessel and
claims a new friend:
Obedient to follow where I lead,
Slick as a juggler’s mate to catch my thought,
Proud, curious, agile, he shall feed
My mounting power
Then to his bright subservience I’ll expound
The desp’rate passions of a haunted heart,
And in that hour “ The Ceremony of Innocence is
Drowned” .
Yeats’s pregnant phrase is an apt culmination to Quint’s
macabre plotting. It is taken up by Miss Jessel— who also
requires “ a soul to share [her] woe” — and is set to a jagged,
THE T U RN OF THE SCREW I4 I

determined transformation of the Dramatic Theme. The im­

portant variations of this theme are rhythmic ones: the
Governess’s initial “ O why did I come?” uses a fluid, medita­
tive shape, loosely but recognisably copied by the orchestra
in the letter scene (Scene 3). It is tentative because the shape
of the drama, the nature of the conflict, is at this stage only
vaguely defined. When the Governess later uses the same
notes to express her resolve to “ see what I see, know what I
know, that they may see and know nothing” , the phrase is
impelled by an impetuous passion which turns to despair
when she sings, to the same notes, “ O, I am useless!” Mrs
Grose’s variant, “ Dear God! is there no end to his dreadful
ways” , is remarkable for mirroring exactly the intonation of
the spoken words. It also turns “ Dear God” into a deeply
felt expostulation that can be detached from the rest of the
phrase, and by inverting and evening out the last notes the
theme is made to convey the surfeit of horror which has at
that point in the story been hers alone. Quint’s melismatic
summons on the same notes evokes the irresponsibility of all
evil, as well as the enchanting arts of the seducer. Here, at
“ The Ceremony of Innocence is Drowned” , the most recent
variation of the Dramatic Theme, we see another dimension
of Quint— his firm purpose of destruction. The music is
tremendously compelling; it compells Miss Jessel, and they
sing together, to the Theme of the variations, their joint
intention to destroy and possess the children.
The second part of the scene shows the Governess “ lost in
her labyrinth” , reminiscent of Vere in his “ cursed mist” . She
sings “ innocence you have corrupted me” and we are re­
minded that by this stage it is her innocence that is at stake
rather than the children’s. Her aria ends, “ lost in my lab­
yrinth which way shall I turn ?” and as if in answer, Variation
IX immediately opens with church bells— though they, of
course, only sound to a variation of the Theme.
Scene 2, “ The Bells” , continues with the bells and against
142 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

them Flora and Miles, walking to church, sing a most unholy

Benedicite with ominous references to phrases from the ghosts’
songs (“ o ye paths and woods, praise him” ), and haunts (“ O
ye moon and stars, windows and lakes . . Most people’s
knowledge of this very comprehensive canticle is hazy enough
for the “ wrong words” to dawn only slowly upon them. The
Governess, in this scene, is still in her labyrinth of confusion,
dazed with the horror which she refuses to communicate to
the children’s guardian: “ that his house is poisoned, the
children mad” (to a phrase from the Dramatic Theme). Miles
stays behind with the Governess when Flora and Mrs Grose
go in to church. After the closing scene of Act I everything is
acknowledged between them, and Miles challenges the
Governess with their shared knowledge and the fact that she
has not yet written to his guardian, which makes her almost
an accomplice. She resolves to leave Bly to a “ flight” phrase
of a rising fourth which becomes continuous semiquaver
movement in Variation X — depicting the flight she does not
make. The semiquaver movement in this variation is under­
laid by a strongly rhythmic presentation of the Theme which
prepares us for the fact that the Governess cannot bring her­
self to leave Bly and, in fact, Scene 3 (“ Miss Jessel” ) finds her
back in the schoolroom, with Miss Jessel sitting at her desk.
Up to this point I feel that Britten has failed to establish
as clear and memorable a musical character for Miss Jessel
as for Quint. This perhaps has a dramatic purpose : the opera
is concerned with working out the Quint/Miles alliance, and
the Miss Jessel/Flora relationship is deliberately left un­
finished, just as so many essential facts in the story are left
unspoken. However, Miss Jessel’s music in Act I, Scene 8,
and even in the colloquy (Act II, Scene 1) is indefinite from
a characterisation point of view— and possibly this again is a
deliberate dramatic device— it is not until this scene in the
schoolroom, a milieu which obviously means much to Miss
Jessel and to the Governess, that her personality fully unfolds.
THE T U R N OF THE SCREW X43
It is Miss JessePs challenge (“ I shall come closer and more
often. So I shall be waiting, hov’ring, ready for the child” )
which makes the Governess stay; it was Miles’s challenge, in
the churchyard, that almost drove her to go. After Miss Jessel
disappears (to a most heart-breaking cry: we have mixed
reactions to her, hating the unholy power she shares with
Quint, yet we cannot withhold sympathy from one of the
most tragic ghosts in all opera), the Governess at last writes
to the children’s guardian. We feel her relief in doing so. This
is one of the loveliest moments in the opera. While the
Governess writes her letter the orchestra plays an agitated
passage, the hesitant, repeated phrases of which are revealed
to be the letter itself which the Governess sings as she rereads
it in a calmer version. The music indicates that it is a declara­
tion of love coloured with a pathetic hopelessness; her last
communication with her employer carried overtones of mar­
riage (“ At last T will’ she said” ) which account in some
degree for her deep involvement with the situation at Bly.
Variation X I is a dialogue between a meditative theme
based on interlocking rising fourths and a flurrying arpeggio
figure; the whole movement is carried out loosely in canon
between bass clarinet and bass flute. That the striking tone
colour of these instruments continues through the alternating
tempi indicates that the strife is, so to say, a civil one: the
altercation is going in on one mind, and the following scene
“ The Bedroom” , reveals this mind to be Miles’s. One drama­
tic point which we can perhaps read into the score is that the
flurrying bars are set in motion by a glockenspiel note. Now
the celesta represents very much the actual presence of Quint
(even when it is used ironically in the letter scene)— and he
is not now present. The glockenspiel sounds somewhat akin
to the celesta— recollected in agitation. Since Quint is obvi­
ously the cause of Miles’s mental turmoil, this variation can
be shown to display quite audibly the motivation of his
thoughts.
144 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

Scene 4 continues the flurrying figure, calmed into a gnaw­

ing, slow trill through which the Maio song emerges, eventu­
ally to be sung by Miles. The scene continues to be a
dialogue, but between Miles and the Governess. The Gover­
ness is associated with the slow rising fourths which began
the variation, and Miles with a new harp figure. The Gover­
ness fails to draw any more out of Miles than she has on
previous occasions. Just when it seems she might possibly
succeed, the music returns to the opening of Variation X I
and at the fourth bar, to the glockenspiel plus flurrying phrase
is added the voice of Quint, unseen, warning Miles. When
the duel— in Miles’s mind— between Quint and the Gover­
ness threatens to become intolerable, the candle goes out; the
Governess sings, “ Oh, what is it?” to her earlier “ who is it?”
phrase, and Miles replies as assertively as he does at the end
of Act I, Scene 6, and Act I, Scene 8, and to the same music
( e x . 59) : “ Twas I who blew it, dear.”

Variation X II is the only one to include the voice. Quint

projects into Miles’s mind questions about the letter the
Governess has written. Quint’s whispered phrases are accom­
panied by sustained wind chords and side drum with brush
chatterings, and are interwoven with an agitated pizzicato
development of the Maio song. In the short scene 5, Miles
takes the letter. The cor anglais reference to Maio at the end
suggests he may already regret it.
Variation X III— something of a shock until we have seen
the ensuing scene— is mock Mozart. A piano movement full
of the perverted grace the Governess now sees in Miles. Scene
6 (“ The Piano” ) reveals this to be Miles indeed playing to
the Governess and Mrs Grose. This scene shows Miles as
enchanter, imitating Quint. In spite of her knowledge, the
Governess is bewitched into inattention. Flora weaves a more
potent spell: while playing “ cat’s cradle” she lulls Mrs Grose
asleep with a fragment of the lullaby she sang to her doll in
Act I, Scene 7— and slips out to join Miss Jessel. Miles, as
THE T URN OF THE SCREW *45
the Governess subsequently declares, is “ with Quint” . Varia­
tion X IV is a continuation of his piano solo; his character no
longer scaled down to the facet of it he presents to the grown­
ups, Miles plays a triumphant paeon. For the first time in the
opera we have devilish music, and it continues ominously into
Scene 7.
Flora is found by the lake again. The Governess has no
hesitation in pointing out Miss Jessel both to Flora and to
Mrs Grose. Mrs Grose cannot see the ghost: Flora will not—
and sings a childish yet hysterical rejection of the Governess
in the middle of which a portamento phrase, “ I hate her” ,
recalls the children’s style of talking to the ghosts in Act I,
Scene 8, and Act II, Scene 2. It is this phrase that the Gover­
ness broods over at the end of the scene. She sings the
Dramatic Theme to the words, “ But I have failed, most
miserably failed and there is no more innocence in me” .
Variation X V begins with similar big chords to those which
swelled and subsided in Variation V III. These do not sub­
side. They explode first in a falling piccolo phrase, then in a
rising timpani phrase (which dies away in a glissando). It
has the effect of intolerably intensifying the mood for the
climax of the opera. Scene 8 opens with the phrase in which
the Governess sang “ My friend, you have forsaken me at last”
in the previous scene. Mrs Grose and Flora are about to
depart— this is the last time we are to see Flora, and it is full
of echoes: she is holding her doll, which has by now strong
supernatural connotations, and when “ the Governess walks
towards them, Flora deliberately turns her back” — in the
Act I lake scene it was from Miss Jessel that she deliberately
turned. Mrs Grose, however, has not forsaken the Governess
after all. The orchestra reveals that she is able to see the
nightmarish period she has spent with Flora as an extension
of Quint’s influence : “ Dear God, is there no end to his dread­
ful ways?” This theme (Ex. 54) is played a second time when
they discover that Miles has stolen the letter. Mrs Grose and
146 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B RI T T E N

Flora go away, but it is with no sense of optimism that we

see them leave: nothing that we have been shown of the
guardian or Mrs Grose during the opera gives the impression
that they will be capable of dealing with a situation that has
defeated the Governess.
As they go the last movement starts— a passacaglia— with
the Theme of the variation interludes as its bass. The Gover­
ness again sings the Dramatic Theme, this time confidently:
“ O Miles, I cannot bear to lose you. You shall be mine and
I shall save you” . But because this theme has been associated
so cumulatively with her failure, we know already that she
will not succeed. The passacaglia— almost inevitable for a
Britten opera climax— is a very effective way of conveying
the fact that things are moving at last. It has been a static
opera until this point. The situation is no different from the
beginning, except that the Governess knows about it. We
have no evidence to suggest that Miles and Flora are more
deeply embroiled than when they first welcomed the Gover­
ness with unnatural charm.*
The measured walking pace of the repeated bass is purpose­
ful. The Governess’s tentative conversation with Miles is full
of suspense and verbal fencing :
mi les : So my, dear, we are alone.
governess : Are we alone?
mi les : O, I’m afraid so.
g o v e r n e s s : Do you mind being left alone?
mi les : Do you?
g o v e r n e s s : Dearest Miles, I love to be with you.
What else should I stay for ?
We have been here before— and got no further— but the
rhythm of the music is gradually moving forward. When the
* I have seen a production in which Quint appears in fetters at the begin­
ning of the opera; these fall half off when Miles steals the letter and are
gone in the last scene. It is an interesting idea, but unjustified in the text.
Miles is dismissed his school before the opera starts.
THE T U RN OF THE SCREW 147
Governess asks, “ . . . tell me, what it is then you have on
your mind” , Quint joins the ensemble (as he did in the bed­
room scene) answering her by his presence when Miles will
not. Miles is the central (though by this stage, silent) figure
in the struggle between the Governess and Quint, to possess
him. At the climax of their duet, perhaps a surprisingly quiet
climax, Miles turns on Quint, names him, and dies. To the
phrase which has been used for Miles’s enigmatic answers
and challenges (Ex. 59) Quint bids him farewell; he disap­
pears to the first lovely melisma he sang in Act I, Scene 8.
The Governess meanwhile, does not realise that Miles is dead.
“ Ah, Miles, you are saved,” she sings. “ Now all will be well” ,
and, ironically, “ Together we have destroyed him.” When
she discovers she is holding the dead child she sings, passion­
ately, the Maio song, which concludes the opera.
The Turn of the Screw is, I think, with Billy Budd, Britten’s
finest opera up to the present. This subject could only be set
within the intimacy of chamber opera: the oppressive in­
timacy of Bly which the guardian had tasted and shunned is
made a reason for the close-knit structure of the work. The
lack of development in the story— in so great a contrast to
Billy Budd— is solved by the episodic form. The setting of the
very skilful libretto is so clear and sensitive that the characters
— not one of whom is in any way ready-made or an operatic
type— are consistent in every phrase that they sing: Miles,
for example, sings so little, yet by the lesson scene we are
already able to recognise the inconsistency of the Maio song
— and to speculate on its significance.
 Chapter eight

Noye’ s Fludde
 Libretto from the Chester Miracle Plays.
First performed Orford Church, June 1958.

CHARACTERS
THE VOICE OF GOD Trevor Anthony, spoken
NOYE Owen Brannigan,
bass-baritone
MRS NOYE Gladys Parr, contralto
SEM Thomas Bevan, treble
HAM 1 - . f Marcus Norman, treble
their sons
\ Brian Weller
JAFFETT Michael Crawford, tenor
MRS SEM Janette Miller
1 girl
MRS HAM Katherine Dyson
f sopranos
MRS JAFFETT Marilyn Baker,
Penelope Allen
Doreen Metcalfe girl
CHORUS OF GOSSIPS
Dawn Mendham sopranos
Beverley Newman
THE RAVEN David Bedwell, dancer
THE DOVE Maria Spall, dancer
THE CONGREGATION
The chorus of Animals and the Orchestra were from East Suffolk
schools with the English Opera Group Players, leader Emanuel
Hurwitz.

Production and setting: Colin Graham

Costumes : Ceri Richards
Conductor: Charles Mackerras
Assistant Conductor: Jan Cervenka
SYNOPSIS

After the congregational hymn, “ Lord Jesus, think on me” ,

the voice of God announces to Noye that He intends to
punish the wickedness of man by destroying the earth in a
flood. Noye, his wife, their three children, and their wives are
to be saved. God gives Noye instructions for building the Ark,
and work commences— in spite of the mockery of Mrs Noye
and her companions. The Ark is finished, but Mrs Noye still
refuses to take the threatened flood seriously. The animals are
brought into the Ark. Noye’s sons go to persuade their mother
to enter the Ark and eventually have to carry her into it!
They close the Ark and the storm begins. At the height of
the storm the congregation sings “ Eternal Father, strong to
save” .
After the storm Noye sends a raven out of the Ark. It does
not return— a sign that it has found dry land. Then he sends
a dove: the dove returns with an olive branch, a sign of
fertile conditions. God commands Noye and his family to
leave the Ark and creates the rainbow as a symbol of His
future goodwill to mankind. The congregation sings “ The
spacious firmament on high” .
Noye's Fluide is one of a cycle of medieval plays known as the
Chester Miracle Plays. These formed an essentially civic and
lay celebration of religious festivals. The plays were performed
by individual Guilds, acting on floats which processed around
the town performing in the market-place and outside the
church door— the important thing being that the perform­
ances took place outside the churches, unlike the liturgical
drama from which they derived. Although they continued
as late as the sixteenth century, and it is on a sixteenth-century
text that this opera is based, their entire spirit is that of the
Middle Ages : the wilful anachronisms and the vitality of the
vernacular expression of religious ideas combine to present
us with characters as idiosyncratic as Chaucer’s, clearly deriv­
ing from the people who created the roles in the dramas.
Britten re-creates the sense of communal activity of the
Miracle plays. Noye's Fluide involves a wide range of singing
activity and an even greater instrumental diversity. Among
the large range of instruments, some are more equal than
others : “ the orchestra is of two kinds, professional and children
(amateurs) . . . There are three sorts of amateur violins:
the firsts should be capable players, not however going above
the 3rd position, and with the simplest double-stops. The
seconds do not go out of the 1st position, while the thirds are
very elementary, and have long stretches of just open strings
. . (Preface). Even the audience is fully involved, and is,
in fact, responsible for the climaxes of the opera. The whole
orchestral force is: Professional— solo string quintet, solo
treble recorder, piano duet, organ and timpani; Children—
string orchestra, recorders, bugles, handbells, bass, tenor and
side drums, tambourine, cymbals, triangle, whip, gong,
Chinese blocks, wind machine, sandpaper scrapers, and
“ tuned” suspended mugs.
n o y e ’s f l u d d e
*53

The work opens with a setting of the hymn “ Lord Jesus,

think on me55, sung by the audience (designated “ congrega­
tion55, for Britten’s re-creation, unlike the original, is in­
tended to be performed in church). It is a fierce, penitential
opening, the sort of setting which, once we have heard it,
makes the “ normal55 use of this hymn unbearably tame. The
melodic and rhythmic shape of the hymn is used in a number
of contexts in the opera. The key phrase of the setting,
timpani rolls and the bass line of the first two bars, becomes
the accompaniment to God’s voice, a spoken part. This
phrase recurs to underline the 3 + 1 shape of the verse :
I, God, that all this worlde hath wroughte,
Heaven and eairth, and all of naughte,
I see my people in deede and thoughte,
Are sette full fowle in synne.
Man that I made I will destroye,
Beaste, worme and fowle to flye,
For on eairth they me deny,
The folk that are theiron.
When God gives the very practical information of the
dimensions of the ark, Noye joins in, as if taking notes, and
the rhythm gradually speeds up into the busy music of the
“ Building of the Ark55.
Each section of the opera has a prevailing instrumental
colour: this is predominantly piano and string tone. Noye’s
children (three trebles and three girl sopranos) have memor­
able material
e x . 60
Shm

Fa-tber, I am all rea-dye bowne; An axe I have and by my crowne!

A s sbarpe as a n -y e in all this towne, F or to go ther - to.

154 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMIN BRITTEN
It is enchanting music. The vigour and rhythmic life com­
pletely reflect the medieval mood and diction. Probably in
no previous century since the original could this play have
been set in a musical style so apt for this verbal and concep­
tual climate of thought.
The entry of Mrs Noye and her “ gossips” provides a comic
interlude, characteristic of the Miracle plays. She sings the
children’s building music in mocking augmentation and a
spirit of non-cooperation. Her gossips repeat it in chattering
double diminution. Noye and the children begin to build the
ark, Noye singing a short strophic air:

Viola and Cello

This is a closely knit movement; the bass moves in rising

fifths, a big extension of Noye’s first interval, with phrases
from “ Lord Jesus, think on me” sung at the cadences by the
children. The unity is surprising. The style of the music for
the adult singers closely conforms with that of the children,
but this simplicity is effected without losing any musical
opportunities.
God’s voice interrupts further squabbling between Noye
and Mrs Noye. It is accompanied similarly to its first appear­
ance and again its spacious, non-urgent style is transformed
by Noye— an embryo Moses— into purposeful action. This is
the episode of the “ Animals” , bugle fanfares characterising
the orchestral sound, and introducing another splendid tune
for the children. The material is in two parts: Noye’s children
have a snappy rhythmic march, answered by the choruses of
animals entering the ark, who sing “ Kyrie eleison” in the
manner of the animal they are impersonating— a tremend-
n o y e ’s f l u d d e
*55
ously vital act of worship and an exciting dramatic effect.
There is another Mrs Noye episode, in which the first line
of the opening hymn is again recalled, again cadentially.
Sem goes to persuade Mrs Noye to enter the ark and is re­
buffed. The gossips sing a drinking song to drown their fear
of the flood. It is another number of very direct expression
in which the character of the gossips is unambiguously
identifiable :
e x . 62
G ossips.

Lett us drink or we de - parte, de - parte. For ofte

tymeswehave done soe, done soe; For att a draughte thou drinkes a

quarte, And aoe will 1 do, soe

The verses are interspersed with more pleas from Noye.

Eventually his sons carry their mother bodily into the ark.
The episode of the “ Storm” begins, involving particularly
percussion* and recorders. The whole section is a passacaglia
over this rising four-bar phrase:
e x . 63

Noye’s children and Mrs Noye sing a rhythmically altered

version of the opening hymn; then they shut themselves in
the ark and the orchestra takes over for an extended instru­
mental passage, the longest in the work. A climax slowly
develops and out of a long rising chromatic scale (which helps

* The slung mugs make a remarkably wet sound. I played this to a four-
year-old who had not much idea of what was going on and she instantly
identified them as raindrops.
156 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMIN BRITTEN
the assimilation of the harmonic style of the hymn) the central
hymn, “ Eternal Father, strong to save” , emerges, and is sung
by the congregation, still with the passacaglia bass. The storm
then subsides, working loosely backwards through the
material with which it was built up.
“ After the Storm” — the two birds Noye sends to prospect
for dry land are characterised in dances: the raven with a
solo cello, a seeking, restless chromatic movement; the dove
with a solo recorder cooing caressingly. Noye’s recitative is
accompanied by recollections of the storm passacaglia tune.
God’s voice commands Noye to

Take thy wife anone,

And thy children everyone,
Out of the Shippé thou shalt gone,
And they all with thee.
Beastes and all that can flie,
Out anone they shall hye,
On eairth to grow and multeplye,
I will that soe yt be.

There is another spacious, cumulative ensemble as the animals

and “ The Noye Family Leave the Ark” . The build-up is
visual as well as aural. Musically it is based on a third memor­
able children’s tune :
ex. 64

AI - le - lu - ia,---- A l- le - lu - ia!

The bugles are prominent again.

The final section of the drama is the “ Creation of the
Rainbow” , and the promise it represents. The music is
coloured for the first time by the handbells. The vocal material
is a magical union of Tallis and Addison, enriching the
already freely anachronistic manner that gives such punch to
n o y e ’s f l u d d e
!57

medieval expression with layer upon layer of experience: a

post-Newtonian poem set to a sixteenth-century hymn sung
by Noye’s family and a twentieth-century audience !
e x . 65

Bugles

Handbells

Voice (all, in canon,

and most of the
other instruments)

The work is a joy, and remarkable from any point of view.

Britten’s music for children has been one of his most influen­
tial fields of action and much good primary-school music, in
particular, has been written since this opera. But there have
been few other works where the form itself motivates the
inclusion of children and audience. Noye’s Fludde succeeds
glowingly— whether we regard it as a community act of
worship or do-it-yourself drama— succeeds as music in which
the assorted limitations of the performers result in unlimited
vitality and apt interpretation of the original.
 Chapter nine

A Midsummer N ight’ s Dream

 Libretto adapted from Shakespeare by Benjamin Britten and
Peter Pears.
First performed Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh, June i960.
CHARACTERS
o be RON, King of the Fairies Alfred Deller, counter-tenor
t y tan i a , Queen of the Fairies Jennifer Vyvyan, soprano
PUCK ( Leonide Massine II,
\ Nicholas Chagrin,
spoken role
cobweb , a fairy Kevin Platts, treble
PEASEBLOSSOM, a fairy Michael Bauer, treble
mustardseed , a fairy Robert McCutcheon,
treble
moth, a fairy Barry Ferguson, treble
fairies Thomas Bevan, treble
Thomas Smyth, treble
theseus , Duke of Athens ( Forbes Robinson, bass
\ Roger Stalman
HiPPOLYTA, betrothed to Theseus Johanna Peters, contralto
LYSANDER George Maran, tenor
DEMETRIUS Thomas Hemsley, baritone
HERMIA Marjorie Thomas,
young people of Athens
mezzo-soprano
HELENA ( April Cantelo, soprano
\ jo a n Carlyle
bottom , a weaver Owen Brannigan, bass

quince , a carpenter
flute , a bellows-mender
{ baritone

Forbes Robinson
Norman Lumsden, bass
snug, a joiner Peter Pears, tenor
snout , a tinker David Kelly, bass
starveling , a tailor Edward Byles, tenor
Joseph Ward, baritone
Conductors: Benjamin Britten and George Malcolm
Producer: John Cranko
Designers: John Piper and Carl Toms
Stage Director: John Copley
SYNOPSIS

act i: The Wood. Oberon and Tytania quarrel over the

Indian boy. Oberon dispatches Puck to find a magic herb the
juice of which will “ make man or woman madly dote Upon
the next live creature that it sees” , in order to plague his
Queen and possess the boy. Lysander and Hermia meet and
plan their elopement, to avoid Hermia’s betrothal to Deme­
trius. Overlooked by Oberon, Demetrius enters pursued by
Helena: Helena is in love with Demetrius, while he loves
Hermia.
Puck returns with the magic herb and Oberon now charges
him to use it to make Demetrius enamoured of Helena.
The mechanicals set about casting their play, Pyramus and
Thisby. Puck mistakes Lysander and Hermia, sleeping, for
Demetrius and Helena. He anoints Lysander with the magic
juice, but it is Helena, abandoned by Demetrius, who wakes
him and as a result of the enchantment Lysander is now
utterly in love with Helena. Oberon finds the sleeping
Tytania and squeezes the juice on her eyes.

act ii : The Wood. The mechanicals5rehearsal goes forward.

Puck puts an ass’s head upon Bottom: unaware, Bottom scares
away his companions and wakes the enchanted Tytania—
who falls in love with him.
Hermia is abandoned by Lysander and pursued by Deme­
trius. Oberon enchants Demetrius, who wakes to find Helena.
Now both Lysander and Demetrius are in love with Helena,
who can be forgiven for thinking that both of them and the
spurned Hermia are mocking her.
Oberon gives Puck another herb to disenchant Lysander.
162 THE OPERAS OF BEN JAM IN BRITTEN

act hi : The Wood, early next morning. Oberon, satisfied

that he has the Indian boy, determines to resolve “ this hate­
ful imperfection” , disenchants Tytania, and promises to see
the “ pairs of faithful lovers wedded with Theseus all in
jollity” .
The lovers awake, now tidily paired— Helena with Deme­
trius and Hermia with Lysander. Bottom, too, wakes up and,
rejoining his crew, makes final preparation for their play.
At Theseus’s Palace, Theseus and Hippolyta are joined by
the four lovers and a triple wedding is planned.
The mechanicals present the “ lamentable comedy of
Pyramus and Thisby” for the court’s entertainment. Festivities
are concluded at midnight, the couples retire, and the fairies
return to bless the palace and the nuptials.
There are problems in turning a well-known original play into
an opera which do not exist in ordinary circumstances—
which did not exist, for example, in Peter Grimes, Billy Buddy or
Gloriarla. To convert any familiar story into opera is difficult
enough, since the librettist must tamper with the emphasis
and the composer with the proportions in order to present the
drama in terms of music. But a play looks misleadingly like a
libretto, and with a celebrated Shakespearean play the very
knowledge on the part of the audience of passages of the text,
end-of-scene couplets, and the general structure may set up
barriers between their acceptance of “ a new version with
music” and their reverence for “ the real thing” . An opera
must, then, radically change the original if only for its own
survival. A Midsummer Night's Dream (Britten) has a number
of things in common with A Midsummer Night's Dream
(Shakespeare), but it presents a single interpretation of the
comprehensive material of the play, and in imposing this
narrow reading reveals some aspects in compensatingly
greater depth.
The Dream is not the most potentially operatic play of
Shakespeare’s: Othello and Macbeth are the obvious stuff on
which nineteenth-century operas, at least, are made. As
Comedy, the Dream has strong traditional conventions which
have grown up quite separately from traditional comic opera
— there is not only no correspondence between comic opera
and comic drama, but also both have developed highly
idiomatic approaches to comedy which have to be reinter­
preted during the transformation. (For example, there is
nothing in the play to direct what musical change of style
should be used for the Pyramus and Thisby play, and nothing in
the thin annals of English opera to suggest in what way prose
should be handled differently from blank verse, and blank
164 t h e OPERAS OF BEN JAM IN BRITTEN

verse from rhymed.) In short, the experience of the Dream—

the most English of the comedies— is the most unlikely
experience to find in opera, of our time, in this country.
So there are changes. Opera is a blunt instrument: opera
tends to simplify rather than compress. The Theseus/
Hippolyta frame of the play has been removed; Theseus
appears only at the end, as a rather tin god to overrule
Hermia’s father and arrange the weddings. That he is not the
real deus ex machina we have become very aware during the
course of the opera. This is the role of faery in the opera. The
faeries, the most essentially Oberon, are the controlling force
of the drama; they have the most musically extensive style
and— in spite of Puck’s mishaps— are the most dramatically
powerful. They bear little relation to the gossamer creatures
of Mendelssohn’s incidental music. Britten and Pears set the
seal on their interpretation of the play by putting the faeries at
the centre of the opera, endowing them with heavy magic
and, indeed, implied divinity. They are promoted to the fram­
ing role and in consequence “ reality” or the norm is shifted
from the anachronistic court of Athens to the domestic and
cosmic affairs of Tytania and Oberon.
The lovers are patently in their power. And they are
diminished by this contact. It is only as lovers that we see
them, and yet this intimate core of their natures, the only justi­
fication of their appearance in the drama, is so controlled by
the use and misuse of Oberon’s magic that they appear less
than life-size in consequence. Hermia and Helena are drawn
on a larger scale than the men : they are, for one thing, con­
stant— they are untouched by the magic, And we do have a
fuller picture of them in Helena’s aria of their girlhood. But
they are as much at the mercy of the men as the men are at
the mercy of the magic— and they tend to take their dramatic
dimensions from Lysander and Demetrius.
The mechanicals tangle more substantially with the faery
world, and through Oberon’s careful purpose and the
A MIDSUMMER N IG H T’S DREAM 165
splendidly arbitrary behaviour of Puck, Bottom is admitted
within it. That he is undiminished by this contact is a special
characteristic of Bottom. His companions are as much at the
mercy of the magic as are the lovers— their play cannot go
forward without Bottom— and a faery whim can shatter their
material world. The opera, then, is concerned specifically
with power : the benign amorality of faery power. By putting
the faeries at the centre of the opera, every other aspect is
seen only as touched by them.
The faery world is more extensive than the Athens of the
mortals and is depicted in more detail. In a sense, all the
scenes which take place in the wood are in “ faeryland” , but it
is defined in the opera more in terms of sound than space, and
there are a number of special sonorities which admit us into
the presence of the faeries. The first is indicated in the opening
bars of the opera— the mysterious string glissandi—

ex . 66

— which immediately evoke both the other-worldliness and

the power of the faeries. In contrast to this, the harp, invari­
ably, and the harpsichord, sometimes, accompany the scalic
tune of the trebles

ex . 67
166 THE OPERAS OF BEN JAM IN BRITTEN

— the other-worldliness without the power. Transparent tex­

tures, often on a similar scale to the chamber operas, are a
feature of the opera (written, after all, for the Jubilee Hall,
not Covent Garden: a semi-chamber opera). They are
physically necessary to give effective passage to the children’s
voices and the counter-tenor Oberon; and they exploit the
precision of the harpsichord, the intimacy of the solo string
writing and the specially magic sound of string and harp
harmonics. Puck, a spoken role, has his own sonority in the
trumpet and drum accompaniment to his appearances.
Oberon’s spell— the powerhouse of the whole drama— is
evoked in a pattern for the celesta which both condenses and
accompanies the melodic line of the spell theme :
ex . 68
- Slow

Be it on Lion, Bear or Wolf or Bull, On meddling Monkey or bu - sy Ape.

The faery characters divide musically into three groups.

The first, Cobweb, Mustardseed, Moth, Peaseblossom, and
their companions are trebles. Their music is more sophisti­
cated than any earlier children’s music in Britten’s operas,
though it has as always an absolute clarity and directness in
the structure of the tunes that is completely apt for the voices.
Ex. 67 shows Britten’s rhythms working, as they must, quite
independently of the verbal rhythms— a fact which it is far
easier to appreciate than to achieve for oneself! Ex. 67 recurs
and is always associated with contrasting chordal tunes. At
the end of the first act it appears, inverted, as a lullaby refrain
to “ You spotted snakes” , which spans the same major sixth
range with arpeggio movement instead of step-wise. These
faeries are appurtenances to Tytania and range themselves
whole-heartedly on her side in the quarrel with Oberon. Their
A M IDSUM M ER N IG H T’S DREAM 167
blind obedience to her, even in her scene with Bottom, is
amply illustrated in the mechanical little phrase with which
they greet Bottom:
ex . 69

Hail, hail, mor-tal, hail, mortal, mortal, hail, hail.

They possess no power— or if they do it is of a very inferior

order: their elaborate charm (“ You spotted snakes” ) at the
end of the first act, and even their sentinel left on guard,
cannot prevent Oberon’s approach. Intervals of thirds and
sixths are prevalent in the faery music. This group explores
parallel thirds, moving chromatically, in the soothing “ On
the ground, sleep sound” chorus which closes the second act;
and a pair of these thirds, as it were uncoiled, introduce the
closing section of the whole opera in a more intricate line :
ex . 70

Now, now the hungry li - on roars And the wolf bchowls the Moon, whilst the hea-vy ploughman

nJf J'pJi 1^ •
snores, All with wear-y task for done.

These faeries are essentially lyrical beings : to sing— tunes— is

their service to Tytania and they guard her, lull her and
entertain her guest with characteristically melodic response.
In contrast to this lyricism, Puck is a spoken part. He is
Oberon’s acolyte and the timbre of the spoken voice balances
and combines with the counter-tenor tone in the same way
that the fluently melodic faery chorus is matched with the
coloratura role of Tytania. He is necessarily an acrobat; the
trumpet arpeggio with which he is musically characterised is
always further ranging than the faery group’s melodies, and
the high, tuned drum excites more physical action :
168 THE OPERAS OF BEN JAM IN BRITTEN

EX. 71
Trumpet in D
(sounding)

•f J ' r ■ - »-1 J
mf

Tamburo in F#

-I1 i J ifm m
af mf

Because he is so intimately associated with Oberon he has a

share in wielding the magic— he enchants Lysander to a very
Puck-coloured version of the spell. His instrumentally
exuberant nature is only suppressed when Oberon is angry
with him, after the lovers’ central quarrel scene; but he is
quite without remorse and the trumpet soon reappears, as he
misleads Lysander and Demetrius through the mist. He has
the final scene to himself—not an inflated role if we regard him
as the executive function of Oberon, who has brought about
the entire drama and deserves to wind it up.
There are, in the play, always two ways of assessing the
part played by Oberon and Tytania: either they are semi­
divine spirits whose domestic quarrellings have an effect on
the natural order—
tytania: . . . I have forsworn his bed and company.
o b e ro n :
Therefore the winds have sucked up from the
sea Contagious fogs,
tytani a : Therefore the ox hath stretched his yoke in
vain,
oberon : The fold stands empty in the drowned fields,
ty tani a : The crows are fatted with the murion flock.
oberon and t y t a n i a : The seasons alter . . .

who wield a real power over mortals—

When they next wake, all this derision
Shall seem a dream and fruitless vision,
and are worshipped— “ his mother was a votress of my Order” .
A M IDSUM M ER N IG H T’ S DREAM 169
Or, alternatively, we are free to consider them merely a pro­
jection of the mortal world; they are invented scapegoats for
the “ progeny of evils” (the more trivial incidents are attribu­
ted to Puck:

Are you not he

That frights the maidens of the villagery,
Skim milk and sometimes labour in the quern,
And bootless make the breathless huswife churn . . .) ;
they, the faeries, are blamed for the inherent faithlessness of
lovers and are dreamed up superstitiously to bless marriages. I
think that Britten and Pears, in their adaptation of the play,
come down indisputably in favour of the former role. The fact
that we have an extended faery scene for the first scene in the
opera (they do not appear till the second act in Shakespeare)
and, more subtly, that Lysander and Hermia’s first scene in
the opera takes place in the wood which we have already seen
and heard to be an enchanted sphere of action (the lovers
and the mechanicals unwittingly seek out contact with the
fairies) ; that, in the opera, Demetrius does not reveal that he
was once betrothed to Helena and is in the third act reverting
to his “ natural taste” — instead in the opera he remains
enchanted and in Oberon’s power— these facts assert the
reality of the faeries and the consequent domination of the
music and the drama by their king and queen.
Vocally they are shown to be creatures of a different kind
from the mortals; Tytania is a coloratura soprano. It is per­
haps a dramatic fault that her voice physically overwhelms
Oberon’s, since she does not do so dramatically. Possibly,
however, she is being punished in the opera as much for her
overbearing volume of sound in the first scene as for her refusal
to part with the Indian boy : when Oberon passes through the
fairy guard to annoint Tytania’s eyes with the magic herb, it
is her magic he is breaking— magic which is identified with
vocal art
170 THE OPERAS OF BEN JAM IN BRITTEN

EX. 72
Tytania

'^ rTTr imm 7 ir ■ rlirrčgrirTrpr

Sing---------------------------- me now a - sleep, sing-------------------------- me now a - sleep

and the false security of her guarded sleep is closely linked

with the “ roundel and a fairy song” which she commissions.
This point having been established, her devotion to Bottom is
doubly ridiculous, when after his un-lyrical attempt at “ The
woosell cock so black of hue” , she sings—
I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again;
Mine ear is much enamoured of thy note.
She is vocally subdued when Oberon removes the enchant­
ment, and even when he invites her to summon her music,
she sings a restrained phrase; and in the house-blessing scene
at the close of the opera she is relegated to a line in the
ensemble equivalent to those of her minions :
ex . 73

— by this stage they are all under Oberon’s rule.

Oberon is the central figure of the opera. He is disting­
uished vocally from the mortals by being a counter-tenor
A M IDSUM M ER N IG H T’ S DREAM I7I

which, ideally, ought to bring to the part a cutting clarity of

tone to match the harpsichord, celesta, trumpet, and spoken
voice associated with his music. Perhaps the existence of this
role will generate its own vocally significant exponents;
certainly the middle tessitura and frequent repeated notes
make less sense for the alternative— a contralto voice.
Oberon is too vast a character for the limits of motivic charac­
terisation, but an important aspect of his mind is revealed
in the spell music (Ex. 68)— a bitonal theme which not only
depicts the transforming aspect of the magic but also the
devious (and not very responsible) workings of Oberon’s
mind. This spell absorbs him from the moment of Tytania’s
refusal to part with the boy. He is brooding on it when he
enters to witness Demetrius and Helena’s first quarrel. His
aria, “ I know a bank” , is a development and free extension
of the spell theme, which is also compressed into a single
word, revealingly :
e x . 74

fan — — - ta-'sies

Once he has relieved Tytania of her enchantment these

intervals cease to obsess his melodic line and we are shown a
more majestic character in the Ex. 73 ensemble— the ritual of
magic power rather than the arbitrary and private uses of it.
Oberon’s scenes with Tytania are built on a three-note
descending figure

/ Jeà- lous O - ber - on

(Proud Ty - ta - ni - a

which seems to have the function of focusing the music, after

the wide-sweeping glissandi of Ex. 66, on the private and
domestic relationship between Oberon and Tytania. It is
172 THE OPERAS OF BEN JAM IN BRITTEN

applied to the following, among a great variety of phrases :

“ Oberon is passing fell and wrath” ; “Jealous O b e r o n “ Proud
Tytania” ; “ I have forsworn his bed and company” . It is used
for “ My Oberonl” (Tytania waking and disenchanted) and
inverted for “ Now thou and I are new in amity” and, as a
motif, it seems to belong both to the quarrel and the re­
conciliation, but not to any exterior concerns of either Oberon
or Tytania.
The lovers are limited creatures compared with the
faeries. We see them only as lovers— in contact with no one
(until the scene at Theseus’s court) but their pursued and
pursuing interchanging partners. For more than half the time
the men are under the spell and the women battling with the
irrational treatment they receive. Love is not portrayed as
glorious : it is painful, cruel, and, in the end, trivial. There is
not much scope for characterisation, since not much character
is revealed— or is there to be revealed. All the scenes are
based on an aching chromatic phrase
ex . 76

,i/, rTif-ft rTTii iT ^ P n

<----------- a ------------> <----------- b ---------> «--------------c -------------------- >

and each of the four lovers derives much of his or her melodic
line from this. The only occasions on which the music departs
from this material are made significant by its absence. In the
first Hermia and Lysander scene the style changes at the
vows into a musical as well as verbal hyperbole which indi­
cates the irony of their protestations :
EX. 77
H erm ia 1------- 1 '
J j- j>j

I swear to thee by Cu - pid’s strongest_ bow;_ swear to thee.

Woodwind
Strings
-Tte--- '
T --* -r r '■ r * r * r
A MIDSUMMER N I G H T ’ S DREAM 173

by his best ar - row with the gol - den head

Brass

These vows are doomed because they do not take into account
the prevailing state of the four lovers— depicted in Ex. 76:
they portray their love as resplendent when, in fact, both
Helena and Demetrius are suffering because of it, and they
portray it in terms of harmonic solidity when it is suffici­
ently fickle to be disrupted by a whim— or sufficiently vulner­
able to be shattered by faery power.
In Helena and Demetrius’s first scene, separated from the
vows only by the brief appearance of Oberon, meditating
magic, the same pervading theme (Ex. 76) emphasises the
interchangeability of the two pairs. While the yearning phrase
(a) was strongly associated with the mutual but unfulfilled
love of Hermia and Lysander, however, Demetrius expresses
his rejection of Helena chiefly in phrase (b), which becomes
“ I love thee not” . Helena expresses her spurned passion in a
broken version of phrase (a) :

You draw me . . . you hard hearted . . . adamant . . .

Leave you your . . . power to draw
And I shall have no . . . power to follow you.

But she is shown to have some independence of this theme in

her two short arias— “ I am your spaniel” in this scene and
“ Injurious Hermia” in the quarrel scene, both of which have
a fresh, non-chromatic style which isolates them in their
contexts—just as Helena is forced into isolation by Demetrius’s
treatment of her :
*74 THE O PERA S OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

E X . 78

Whenever Lysander breaks free of Ex. 76 we know he is

acting uncharacteristically. Under the spell, he wakes to find
Helena, and protests his love for her in a quite different style
— an impetuous diatonic line with frequent grace notes :
e x . 79

N ot Hermi-a, but He - le -n a I love; Who will not

change a ra - ven for a dove ?

A disturbed string texture is associated with this music— it

recurs when Demetrius is, in his turn, enchanted, and his
spellbound vocal line augments the tonal alternation in the
orchestra:

e x . 80

ti r t f lf r f T if f f i r I f . in r
O , H e - le n , goddess, nymph, per-feet, d i-vine, T o what, my love shall I com-pare thine eyne?
A MIDSUMMER N I G H T ’ S DREAM 175

The men resolve to fight to an inversion of Ex. 76 :

to try whose right
O f thine or mine is most in Helena.

When in the last act the lovers wake they return, of course, to
Ex. 76 material. The pairs are now appropriately differen­
tiated: Lysander and Hermia awake to versions of the (a)
phrase which has throughout represented their reciprocated
love; Helena to a fragment of (c), which must now represent
her new union (since (b) was interpreted as Demetrius’s
rejection of her). Demetrius’s waking phrase is a com­
promise— the “ undiscriminating” , enchanted interval of a
tone (see Ex. 80) refined into a semitone borrowed from (a) ?
This does not matter. The lovers are not real enough for it to
be a problem that Demetrius remains enchanted— and that
Lysander once spurned Hermia so unkindly. The “ horns of
elfland faintly blowing” mock them throughout this scene.
The awakening and the continued enchantment are expres­
sed most aptly in the ensemble
And I have found Demetrius, like a jewel.
Mine own, and not mine own.
The glowing harmonic changes refer back to the vows of the
first act, but the chastening experiences in the wood result in
a less ambitious flaunting of fidelity, and the grace notes
recall Ex. 79 and the tenuous control each has over his own or
his lover’s affections.
If in the play we regard the faery world as a product of the
imagination, then the mechanicals are at the very roots of
reality. But we cannot, as I have tried to show, view the opera
in this way. There is no more potent argument for the objec­
tive existence of faery than ‘Bottom’s Dream” — Bottom’s
entry into Tytania realm— because this experience could not
be the product of his imagination: the scene with Tytania, in
the opera, could never have been conceived by Bottom, with
176 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

the musical character he is given. The function of the

mechanicals in the opera is partly to represent in their
Pyramus and Thisby play another aspect of the confusions of
love (and show by implication how much better these things
are handled by the faeries: Oberon is the only lover in the
drama who extricates himself by his own endeavours from
adverse circumstances) and partly to show how all levels of
life come into contact with faery magic and are overpowered
by it. The range of musical expression in the opera is immense.
After all the variety of the faery music, and the intensity of the
lovers’ scenes, we now have the superb comedy of the mechani­
cals.
Their first scene depicts the progress of the mood of the
rehearsal— from their tentative, diffident entrance to opti­
mistic euphoria. Each of the characters is memorably deline­
ated in this and the subsequent scenes, but two of them,
Bottom and Flute, have particularly interesting musical
characters. There is this difference between them: Bottom’s
music interprets his verbal character fully— a considerable
feat— but I do not think it adds anything that is not present in
the play; Flute, on the other hand, is a shadowy figure in the
play, whose main characteristic is to allow himself to be over­
borne by Bottom and Quince— in the opera he has a detailed
musical character which unfolds far more vividly and
credibly than it does in the text. Bottom’s initial enthusiasm
is represented in a phrase to which he sings all the lines he
aspires to act:
e x . 81

and P h i--b u s ’ car shall shine from far, shall shine from far and make and mar.

— he is still singing this to “ This is Ercles’ vein, a tyrant’s

vein” while Flute is being cast as Thisby, and he takes up
Thisby’s lines to the same tune (falsetto). Flute is a receptive
A MIDSUMMER N I G H T ’ S DREAM !77

character and seizes upon this tune to practise with growing

confidence, volume, and pitch. Bottom’s next infectious
suggestion is his interpretation of the lion’s part. This (with
trombone roars) is taken up by the whole cast into a brief
ensemble, “ That would hang us, every mother’s son” . With
the casting complete, a purposeful march (which has been
forming inconspicuously in the orchestra from the beginning
of the scene) is momentarily enjoyed and the cast disperse as
earnestly as they came.
They assemble for the next rehearsal with a more business­
like underlying rhythm. The first part of this scene is built on
a pattern of the raising of difficulties, ensemble acknowledge­
ment of them, and Bottom’s solutions. The march from the
previous scene introduces the rehearsal itself. The musical
material of the play is a series of nicely balanced parodies and
statements of the musically obvious. Flute’s emerging indepen­
dence is amusing to watch : he begins by singing his lines to
Ex. 81, the only rhetorical style he knows, but is soon carried
away with his own fluency and launches into a boldly sweep­
ing tune at “ Most briskly juvenal and eke most lovely Jew” .
At this point Bottom is “ translated” , but when he awakes
after his period of enchantment it is to this cue, for which he
was waiting an act ago. The Pyramus and Thisby play itself is a
remarkable effort of sustained and wide-ranging parody : it is
also tremendous fun, from the Spreckstimme of Wall, through
tenebroso Victoriana and Gluck-style furies to the silly little
flute tune that introduces each of Thisby’s entries:
e x . 82
178 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

The most exciting aspect of Britten’s A Midsummer Night's

Dream is the way in which he has projected such formidably
familiar material into a wholly musical and therefore wholly
new dimension. So many moments in the opera— the opening
fairy music for strings, the distraught Helena in Act I, Oberon
waking Tytania, Thisby struggling into tune, and the solemn
blessing of the palace at the end— are primarily musical
experiences which exist quite independent of Shakespeare.
There can be no doubt that Britten has created an entirely
new drama from the material of the original, and the result­
ing opera constitutes a revelation, rather than a reinterpre­
tation, of the play.
 Chapter ten

Curlew River
 Libretto by William Plomer from the play Sumida-gawa by
Jùrò Motomasa (1395-1431).
First performed Orford Church, June 1964.

CHARACTERS
THE ABBOT Don Garrard, bass
John Shirley Quirk,
THE FERRYMAN baritone
Neil Howlett
THE TRAVELLER Bryan Drake, baritone
( Peter Pears, tenor
THE MADWOMAN
\ Robert Tear
( Robert Carr
THE SPIRIT OF THE BOY
\ Bernard Morgan
( Bruce Webb, treble
HIS VOICE
\ John Newton
THE CHORUS OF PILGRIMS John Barrow
Bernard Dickerson
Brian Etheridge
Edward Evanko
John Kitchener
Peter Leeming
Philip May
Nigel Rogers
THE PLAYERS Richard Adeney, flute
Neill Sanders, horn
Cecil Aronowitz, viola
Stuart Knussen, double
bass
Osian Ellis, harp
James Blades, percussion
Philip Ledger, organ
Production and Setting: Colin Graham
Costumes: Annena Stubbs
Movement instruction : Claude Chagrin
Music Directors: Benjamin Britten and Viola Tunnard
SYNOPSIS

A company of Monks and their Abbot enter the church. The

Abbot announces that they are to enact a mystery. Three of
the Monks are ceremonially robed, as the Ferryman, the
Traveller, and the Madwoman. The scene is set by a Fenland
river in early medieval times.

the p l a y : The Ferryman is preparing to cross the Curlew

River. An important occasion is taking place on the far bank
— the boat is full of pilgrims who are visiting a shrine there.
The Traveller arrives and asks for a place in the boat. They
hear the approaching Madwoman, who is singing crazily.
She, too, asks for a place in the ferryboat; she is looking for
her son who was seized by a stranger and taken eastwards.
In spite of his habitual brusqueness, the Ferryman is moved
by her quest and lets her embark.
While they are crossing the river the Ferryman tells the
story of the shrine on the far bank. A year ago a barbaric
stranger crossed the river, with a young boy whom he treated
roughly. The boy was ill and the stranger left him to die. The
boy told the river folk about his home in the west and asked
to be buried by the path to the chapel, “ Then, if travellers from
my dear country pass this way, their shadows will fall on my
grave.” The river folk think he was a saint and claim
miracles to have been worked at the grave.
They reach the other bank of the Curlew. The Madwoman
discovers that she is the mother of the boy. In spite of her
desolation at hearing of his death, she joins the pilgrims in
prayer at her son’s tomb. The boy’s voice is heard and his
spirit appears, to heal the mother of her madness.
The protagonists resume their Monks’ habits and the Abbot
makes a final address to the congregation before the proces­
sion of Monks forms again and departs singing the hymn to
which they had entered.
Curlew River, aparablefor Churchperformance, was first performed
in Orford Church in June 1964. At first hearing it seemed to
be a completely new operatic experience: but many of
Britten’s dramatic works have appeared to be new departures
when, after the event, we can see them to be predictable from
the course of development of the previous works. Curlew
River can be seen as a successor to JVoye’s Fludde— in that the
latter re-created the lay representation of religious drama in
the late Middle Ages; Curlew River looks back to the earlier
medieval liturgical drama, performed by the clergy, in church,
the music very closely bound to the plainsong hymns which
were incorporated in the drama. It can, however, also be seen
as a logical culmination of chamber opera : the instruments
are now endowed with such dramatic personality that the
instrumentalists become participants in the drama (to an
even greater extent in The Burning Fiery Furnace) ; the absence
of a conductor is the natural sequel to this and the presence of
certain random elements in the score— passages of which “ no
two performances are likely to be exactly the same” (Imogen
Holst)— is made possible by the “ chamber” interdependence
of the singers and orchestra. The result— of the heritage of
liturgical drama, the intimacy of chamber opera and the
conductorless ensemble— is an unparalleled intensity in per­
formance. It is interesting to find that this intensity was not
only the result but equally the starting-point of the com­
position:

It was in Tokyo in January 1956 that I saw a No-drama

for the first time; and I was lucky enough during my brief
stay there to see two different performances of the same
play— Sumida-gawa. The whole occasion made a tremen­
CURLEW RIVER 183

dous impression upon me, the simple touching story, the

economy of the style, the intense slowness of the action, the
marvellous skill and control of the performers, the beauti­
ful costumes, the mixture of chanting, speech, singing,
which with the three instruments made up the strange
music— it all offered a totally new ‘operatic5 experi­
ence.
There was no conductor— the instrumentalists sat on the
stage, so did the chorus, and the chief characters made
their entrance down a long ramp. The lighting was strictly
non-theatrical. The cast was all male, the one female
character wearing an exquisite mask which made no
attempt to hide the male jowl beneath it.
. . . And so we came from Sumida-gawa to Curlew River
and a church in the Fens, but with the same story and
similar characters; and whereas in Tokyo the music was
the ancient Japanese music jealously preserved by succes­
sive generations, here I have started the work with that
wonderful plainsong hymn “ Te lucis ante terminum55 and
from it the whole piece may be said to have grown. There
is nothing specifically Japanese left in our Parable, but if
we on the stage and you in the audience can achieve half
the intensity and concentration of that original drama I
shall be happy. (Britten in a programme note to the first
production.)

And the prevailing musical process in Curlew River is in­

tensification— of the melodic material. A technique common
to early music both in England and Japan, and probably all
the countries in between, is one known as heterophony: the
simultaneous sounding of plain and decorated versions of the
same tune. This primitive procedure, considerably developed
in scope, is the basis of almost all the music in Curlew River.
At its simplest it becomes a mechanical, unvarying texture:
184 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

EX. 83

When solo voices are involved freer rhythms are possible and
allow a characterising phrase to develop :

ex. 84
Ferryman f ^ 3 1
• , * * * * * 4 i= r >p p t o
I _ _ am tbeFer-ry man, I __ row the Fer-ry boat.

Horn 3

mui_j
a

J ' ~ -
Viola p \
t | T K .__
&
p Double Bass f* f* ^ T7 * t r r

The canonic potential of the technique is most often manifest

in the Madwoman’s music:

ex. 85
CURLEW RIVER 185

At the main climax, the prayer at the boy’s tomb, there are
two concurrent melodic paths each being decorated simul­
taneously. The process of heterophony as it is used in Curlew
River varies from fugai texture (“ Now let me show you where
the boy is buried” ) to a blurred unison (the ceremonial robing
of the protagonists) ; it proves to be both a rich source of new
sonorities and a dramatic way of identifying the instruments
with the vocal line. A prerequisite of the technique is a con­
sistently melodic style. The opening of the opera gives some
indication of how far the work is to depend on melody : it
opens with the plainsong hymn “ Te lucis ante terminum”
sung while the Abbot, Monks, Acolytes and Instrumentalists
process through the church to the acting area.
The plainsong is a naturalising influence on the Japanese
story. Just as the congregational hymns in Noye’s Fludde
demonstrated both the lay nature of the original Miracle
play and the amateur elements in the opera, so the procession
of monks here affirms the ecclesiastical professionalism of the
(medieval) performance that is being represented, as well as
the ritualised style of the (twentieth-century) production
which is actually taking place. The limited range of the hymn
governs much of the material in the opera. Its intervals,
mostly seconds and thirds, dominate the melodic lines of the
Abbot and of the chorus of Monks whenever they are com­
menting on the action from their vocational standpoint : when
they are taking part in the action their style is related more
to that of the protagonists. Lines of the plainsong are quoted
during the opera for various purposes: when in the Abbot’s
introduction he sings, “ A sign was given of God’s grace” , he
quotes the first line of “ Te lucis” (repeated by the Chorus) to
give the verbal phrase added significance. For this is the
main theme of the opera: the purpose of suffering— the suffer­
ing of the boy and his mother— which gives rise to the miracle,
the “ sign of God’s grace” . The Madwoman is trying to escape
from meaningless pain :
186 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B RI T T E N

Where the nest of the curlew

Is not filled with snow,
Where the eyes of the lamb
Are untorn by the crow . . .
There let me go

When she sings this, the loss of her son appears to her to be
in the same category. The opening phrase of the hymn is
quoted again for the boy’s dying prayer in the Ferryman’s
narrative, to underline this theme. But it is used purely
musically when the Abbot sings “ Beloved, attend to our
mystery” at the end of his introduction, to give a cyclic feel­
ing to the first part of this clearly symmetrical work.
There is a brief chorus during the introduction which
contains a shape— repeated notes ending in a semitone drop
(compare Ex. 88) which, with some variation in the extent
and direction of the last interval, occurs frequently in the
opera and is associated chiefly with the grief and suffering of
the Madwoman. The words of this chorus indicate a sub­
sidiary theme— the theme of the medieval performance that
is being represented— “ O pray for the souls of all that fall By
the wayside, all alone” . This idea is expanded later in the
opera—

ferryman : What is the use of tears?

Whom can your weeping help ?
No, rather say a prayer
That in the other world
The soul of your child
May rest in peace.

madwoman: Cruel! Grief is too great,

I cannot pray . . .

ferryman : . . . Lady, remember,

All of us here
CURLEW RIVER 187

May pray for your child :

But your prayer is best
To rejoice his young soul.

This interior theme is very much in the nature of a sermon

text as preached to the medieval congregation,* compared
with the vast implications of the main theme which Curlew
River shares with Billy Budd, Lucretia, and The Little Sweep.
The introduction is scored for chamber organ and drum.
The march which follows involves the remaining instruments
— flute, horn, viola, double bass, harp, and a group of five
small untuned drums. It consists of a metrical statement and
extension of “ 7 * k w ” with a close canon at the octave and
a decorated version superimposed; the drums are played in
sequence up through their pitch range. It is ceremonial
music to accompany the robing of the protagonists. With the
opening of the innermost layer of the drama, personality
emerges for the first time.
And the Ferryman is a particularly forceful personality.
His characterising instrument is the horn (see Ex. 84) and to
a lesser extent the viola. This texture accompanies most of
his entries and can be compared with the wearing of masks
in this work— a potentially static act of characterisation that
is found to be amazingly flexible during the progress of the
opera. The two-note phrases of the horn derive from the
decoration of the march. In spite of the vigorous mood of his
exposition, the Ferryman’s melodic line moves mainly in
seconds and thirds— the hymn is still controlling the material
very closely. The major/minor semitone ambivalence in the
horn and voice parts is typical of many passages in the work :
the chorus which has a central position in the Ferryman’s
monologue (see Ex. 83) moves in this way. It is really another

* Not only are the instrumentalists incorporated in the action: the

required to act the part of the medieval congregation, addressed
audience is
by the Abbot and instructed by the monks.
188 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B RI T T E N

method of decoration, successive not simultaneous, of a simple

outline— and the outline thus varied still contains no intervals
greater than a third.
The approach of the Traveller reveals wider horizons and
a less limited melodic style. His characterising instruments
are the harp and double bass— sweeping arpeggios and a
heavy trudging step :

e x . 86

TTT T T T f f f F F
Double Bass “

— though he reverts to “ Te lucis” for his prayer, “ May God

preserve wayfaring men” . When he reaches the ferry the
Traveller’s instrumental voice holds a dialogue with the
Ferryman’s horn phrase some minutes before their verbal
exchange.
The identification of the instruments with the characters
is very powerful : it enables the flute entry (the same phrase as
in Ex. 85) to announce unambiguously the entry of a new
protagonist. This new instrumental voice is closely linked
with the singing voice of the Madwoman— textually by the
canon between them and dramatically because it represents
an echo (although it precedes her phrases) implying her
loneliness and expressing her agitation. Her first phrase
e x . 87

You m ock me ! You ask me !

CURLEW RIVER 189
comes with a sense of shock after the restricted intervals of
the previous music. It is later identified with the cry of the
curlew. In the words of the riddle, through which her search
for her son is interpreted, the Madwoman “ cannot under­
stand [their] cry” : knowing this (a first time-audience could
not), we can tell from these first notes that she cannot under­
stand herself—she is mad. Her falling chromatic phrases are
thrown into relief by the monotone of the Traveller at this
point (who, incidentally, has a splendid seventeenth-century

(. j>j j j j j j j j.
effect: 4 and also by the monotone chat-
laugh - ing

tering of the chorus—

We will delay the ferry-boat!

We wish to see her.
We wish to hear her singing.
We will laugh at her
Crazily singing.

The Chorus assumes its function as sympathetic commentator

in the expressive passage “ As she wanders raving, and all
alone” and the ephemeral scherzo “ Dew on the grass” .*
The repeated note phrase which turns up or down by one
degree (previously appearing as “ O pray for the souls of all
that fall” in the introduction and “ in every season, in every
weather” in the Ferryman’s preamble) is now associated with
* A “score” of the highly controlled and formalised gestures is published
along with the rehearsal score and the note for “Dew on the grass” runs
as follows: “ [The Madwoman] turns and throws herself on the ground,
sweeping dew off imaginary grass blades with the palm of her right hand.
( N .B . The hand must never touch the floor or illusion is destroyed.)” It
seems a pity that such niceties should be advocated throughout when, in
any church performance that allows the audience into the whole building,
which means every performance so far given of this work, upwards of
forty per cent of the audience are unable to see the Madwoman at this
and several other points, let alone observe whether her hand brushes dew
from the grass or dust from the floor. Necessarily this militates against the
“intensity and concentration” the composer intended.
igo THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

the Madwoman in her remarkable narrative aria, “ Near the

Black mountains There I dwelt”
e x . 88

The expressive impact of this passage is achieved by the most

economical means : the final note of the figure. This note turns
up by a tone when the Madwoman recalls her life before the
tragedy. It is a colourless phrase, drained of emotion because
she cannot clearly remember life before her son was lost and
has no interest in it. By simply turning the last note down by
a tone instead of up,* we are shown how her world was
turned upside down by the event and that her grief is too
great to be expressed more artificially— in the literal sense.
The dropping interval becomes a semitone as the Mad­
woman broods not on her loss but on the fate of her son—
“ seized as a slave, By a stranger, a foreigner” — and the last
remaining version, the rising semitone, depicts the dimension
of her search, and the remoteness of her son from all that is
familiar to her :
* The same interval, however, expresses the Spirits’ consolation in the
miracle scene— the change of context accounts for the reversal of mood.
CURLEW RIVER I9 I

They told me he was taken

Eastward, eastward,
Along the drovers’ track
East, east, east.
The portamento on the last important interval, of course,
emphasises its direction and size. The repeated notes are
transferred to the harp to accompany her weeping (over a
reprise of the chorus “ She wanders raving” to the words:
A thousand leagues may sunder
A mother and her son,
But that would not diminish
Her yearning for her child.)
The Ferryman mocks her, imitating her phrase— “ So you
come from the Black mountains!” His characteristic horn
figure sounds particularly insensitive and blustering juxta­
posed with the Madwoman’s echoing flute. The transforma­
tion of his character is one of the minor miracles of the last
scene; he shows a tendency to parody and bully her right up
to the revelation of the Madwoman’s identity. Indeed, he
even drives her, though gently, into her miracle-producing
prayer. It is this mockery that provokes the Madwoman into
a temporary calm dignity: she expounds the riddle of the
“ famous traveller” (the harp links him with the Traveller in
the opera) :
e x . 89

Birds of the Fen-land, tho’ you float or fly, Wild birds, I can-not un-der-standyour cry,

Tell me_ does the one I love In----- this world still live?

Here, the flute is not a haunting, tormenting echo to her

words ; it becomes the curlew’s cry. The canonic relationship
192 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

between the Madwoman’s vocal line and the flute is no longer

at the octave but at the tenth, indicating that the flute is now
an independent voice. It remains, however, a closely related
voice because “ the one I love” in the riddle is, for the Mad­
woman, her son; and the flight of the curlew represents for
her the boy’s flight eastwards. All these ideas are developed
in a beautiful passage for the Ferryman, Traveller, Chorus—
and flute, very much a voice in the ensemble.
The Ferryman is moved by the unanimous appeals of the
singers— “ Ferryman, she begs of you To let her come aboard”
— and hurries the Madwoman into the boat. Partly under the
influence of his characteristic self-importance and partly to
communicate the quite real danger of the crossing he issues
appropriate warnings that culminate in the prayer “ God
have mercy upon us” , which harks back to the plainsong.
The sail is hoisted to a busy heterophonic instrumental in­
terlude which melts into the slow glissandi of the river music
as the boat is pushed off. The River Curlew is a potent factor
in the drama. Unlike the sea in Peter Grimes, it does not give
rise to tone pictures; rather, it shares with the Tiber in
Lucretia the enacting of a metaphor. There are plenty of
undertones of the Styx around the Curlew river—

smoothly flowing
Between the lands of East and West,
Dividing person from person !

The Ferryman, too, is rude enough to be Charon! Crossing

the river seems a decisive act for the Madwoman. She feels
that she is near the end of her search, particularly after the
riddle episode when she connects the flight of the curlews
with the loss of her son. We are prepared for the miraculous
appearance of the Spirit by the ironic words of the Chorus :

Ah Ferryman, row your ferryboat!

Bring nearer, nearer,
CURLEW RIVER 193

Person to person,
By chance or misfortune,
Time, death or misfortune
Divided asunder!
The idea that chance, misfortune, time or death do the divid­
ing is easily transferred to the river itself. Its spiritual potency
is manifest when, once across it, the Madwoman is granted a
glimpse of the supernatural world. Structurally the river
gives the opera a magnificent central section. The slow glis-
sandi (which have magic connotations quite incidentally
because, they are comparable with those in The Dream) pro­
vide a new background sonority for the important narration
of the Ferryman’s tale. As they are transferred from instru­
ment to instrument they also reflect the changing emphasis of
the story— double bass glissandi to accompany the description
of the “ stranger . . . arm’d with a sword and a cudgel” ; the
viola has them when the boy speaks, and the harp for his
prayer and death. The impact of the boy’s suffering on the
Ferryman is significant— a process continued by the effect of
the Madwoman’s grief— and we can see it working fleetingly
when the Ferryman interrupts his vigorous narrative for the
aside “ Poor child” . The utterly damning phrase, “ He was a
man without a heart” , and the tentative acceptance of the
spiritual event—
The river folk believe
The boy was a saint.
They take earth from his grave
To heal their sickness.
They report many cures.
The river folk believe
His spirit has been seen
— indicate in the Ferryman a more morally aware character
than we witnessed on the west bank of the Curlew.
The Traveller and pilgrims disembark over a purposeful
194 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B RI T T E N

descending ground bass which urges the necessarily slow

action at this point towards the denouement. When only the
Ferryman and the Madwoman are left in the boat his rough
mockery returns and he again parodies Ex. 88— “ You must
be soft-hearted To weep at my story.” He is also of course,
mocking his own susceptibility. A classically tense passage of
questioning follows; the impatience of the Ferryman is re­
flected in the drum accompaniment to his brusque replies,
the restrained but mounting horror of the Madwoman by
sustained chords with harp accents— building up from a single
note for the double bass and harp to six-note chords for the
whole orchestra. At her revelation, “ He was the child Sought
by this Madwoman” , confusion ensues, culminating in the
explosion of her grief, doubly violent after so much restraint,
in her aria “ O Curlew River, cruel Curlew!” This is the only
place where the Madwoman explicitly identifies her son with
the curlews: “ Torn from the nest, my bird” . This train of
thought suggests a return to her earlier chromatic phrase—
“ Where the nest of the curlew is not filled with snow, Where
the eyes of the lamb are untorn by the crow . . .” (subse­
quently her son is “ the innocent lamb” and the stranger “ The
heathen crow” ). Here, the original falling phrase is stated
fortissimo in the orchestra, while the inversion of it appears in
canon—
e x . 90

— which has the effect of affirming the universal wanton

cruelty and the inevitability of suffering in the natural world
which the Madwoman was still questioning on her first
appearance— questioning and hoping to refute.
CURLEW RIVER J95

Her madness is not cured by her knowledge of the truth.

The Madwoman is now deprived of what had become the
purpose of her life— her search. Fragments from earlier
episodes return: “ You ask me Whither I, whither I go” (Ex.
85) is now “ Where shall I, where shall I turn?” ; the chorus
“ She wanders raving” becomes her bitter denunciation of the
river and the birds whose cry she now understands only too
well. The repeated notes of Ex. 88 reappear and the Ferry­
man obviously repents his parody of them when he sings
“ Who would have guess’d that The boy was her child?”
Even the river chorus Ex. 83 has taken a fatalistic turn—
“ where the river for ever divides them” .
A solemn passage expresses the transformation of the
Ferryman’s character: a combination of heterophonic tech­
nique and canon—
e x . 91

The place whereyour wand’ring steps have brought you.

196 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

— an infinitely warm and comforting mood after the Mad­

woman’s desolate reaction to the tragic narrative. But she is
not ready for spiritual consolation. Her thoughts still centre
on herself: a passage of almost motionless grief, “ Hoping, I
wandered on” , is another duet with the flute; the Mad­
woman develops the Ex. 88 figure by extending the last pair
of notes :
e x . 92

I wanderd on_____ Ho-ping---- hoping to find------- my son,

This represents the “ chain on [her] soul” — her awareness of

the dead body of her son, its physical bond with her and its
continuing physical existence :
In all this earth, no road
Leads to my living son . . .
I have come to a grave !
Did I give birth to him
To have him stolen
And carried far, far away,
Here to the Eastern Fens
To end as dust by the road?
O good people, open up the tomb
That I may see again
The shape of my child . . .

It is the Ferryman’s function to mock and bully the Mad­

woman; here he imitates her Ex. 92 phrase gently: “ What is
the use of tears ?” At this point the bell begins tolling, presag­
ing the musical climax and rendering predictable the spiritual
change in the Madwoman. There is at this point a most
lovely chorus— “ The moon has risen” — one of the few
moments in the opera which is there for the sake of the beauty
CURLEW RIVER *97

of its sound rather than its function with regard to the plot
or characterisation. In fact, it also prepares the first line of
the hymn “ Custodes hominium\ which is the basis of the miracle
scene. While the hymn is being sung by the Chorus, accom­
panied by the organ and decorated by the harp and viola,
the Ferryman and the Traveller sing an ecstatic embellish­
ment of the high bell notes. The mood of devotion is inter­
rupted by a flute solo— curlew cries, which sound to the
Madwoman disquietingly “ like souls abandoned” . She poses
the riddle once more: “ Tell me, does the one I love In this
world still live ?” and as if in answer the voice of the spirit of
the boy is heard from the tomb. At this point there are at
least five superimposed versions of the hymn, the spirit having
the most conspicuous decoration, a delayed diminution of the
theme. The spirit then appears, personified in a piccolo solo
which relates his musical character closely to both the curlew
phrase and the Ex. 88 figure. To the latter, the falling tone
version, he bids his mother farewell. The Mother— now freed
from her madness— sings “ Amen” , expanding not her son’s
prayer, nor his blessing, but, characteristically and inevitably
(she is very human, and she is still a mother), the phrase in
which he promises “ we shall meet in heaven” .
The climax is quickly over and the robing ceremonial fol­
lows instantly on the spirit’s last “ Amen” . The Abbot’s address
closely balances his introduction. The chorus corresponding
to “ O pray for the souls of all that fall By the wayside” is
sung to the rising semitone version of Ex. 88— “ O praise our
God that lifteth up The fallen, the lost, the least.” The Abbot
again concludes with the first line of “ Te lucis” — “ In hope, in
peace, ends our mystery” — which is taken up as the per­
formers process out.
This is a beautiful and very memorable work. Paradoxic­
ally, it has seemed to me even more beautiful and memorable
after we have had its successor, The Burning Fiery Furnace.
What Britten has done is to present us with a high point of
198 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

sophistication in a series of dramatic works which bridge the

gap between liturgical drama and The Burning Fiery Furnace,
a series of developing intimacy, intensity, and single-minded
unity between the librettist and the composer : only— the series
itself happens not to have been written. Curlew River presup­
poses such a series, and in isolation it could seem less a
refinement of (non-existent) predecessors than the arbitrary
superimposition of “ invented conventions” on material which
might well have been less artificially presented. O f course,
the “ unwritten” series exists in the No-dramas which gen­
erated these parables. But with the composition of The Burning
Fiery Furnace we have a native genre, and Curlew River, while
remaining remarkably consistent within Britten’s own opera­
tic canon, falls into place as founder member.
 Chapter eleven

The Burning Fiery Furnace

 Libretto by William Plomer from the Book of Daniel.
First performed June 1966, in Orford Church.

CHARACTERS
THE ASTROLOGER (ABBOT) Bryan Drake, baritone
NEBUCHADNEZZAR ( Peter Pears, tenor
\ Kenneth Macdonald
ANANIAS / John Shirley Quirk, baritone
\ John Gibbs
MISAEL ( Robert Tear, tenor
\ Jack Irons
AZ ARIAS ( Victor Godfrey, bass
\ Edgar Boniface
THE ANGEL Philip Wait, treble
ENTERTAINERS AND PAGES Stephen Borton,
Paul Copcutt
Paul Davies
Richard Jones
THE HERALD Peter Leeming, baritone
THE CHORUS OF COURTIERS Graham Allum
Peter Lehmann Bedford
Carl Duggan
John Harrod
William McKinney
Malcolm Rivers
Jacob Witkin
THE PLAYERS Richard Adeney, flute
Neill Sanders, horn
Cecil Aronowitz, viola
Keith Marjoram, double bass
Roger Brenner, alto trombone
Osian Ellis, harp
James Blades, percussion
Philip Ledger, organ
Production and Setting: Colin Graham
Costumes : Annena Stubbs
Movement instruction : Claude Chagrin
Music Directors: Benjamin Britten and Viola Tunnard
SYNOPSIS

The Abbot introduces the play he and his Monks are to

perform. The action of the play takes place in Babylon in the
sixth century b .c . He relates that three young Israelites were
brought to Babylon, having been bound by their fathers
never in any way to betray their faith. The Abbot and five
Monks are robed as an Astrologer, Nebuchadnezzar, a
Herald, and Ananias, Misael and Azarias— the three young
Israelites.

t h e p l a y : A feast is held in honour of Ananias, Misael, and

Azarias, who have been appointed to rule over three pro­
vinces of Babylon. They are given the Babylonian names of
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. When they refuse to eat
and drink with the courtiers the Astrologer convinces Nebu­
chadnezzar that this is a calculated insult. The Herald
announces the royal decree— that a great golden image of the
Babylonian god Merodak is to be set up and :
At what time ye hear the sound of the cornet,
Flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer
And all kinds of music
Ye fall down and worship the image of gold.
Whose falleth not down and worshipeth
Shall be cast into the midst
O f a burning fiery furnace.
The musicians circulate in procession and return to the acting
area. The image of Merodak has been set up. The Babylonians
sing a hymn to Merodak:
Gold is our God,
Fall down and worship it.
2 0 2 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

The Astrologer repeatedly tells Nebuchadnezzar that Shad-

rach, Meshach, and Abednego will not worship the image;
eventually Nebuchadnezzar interrogates them and hearing
their refusal to acknowledge Merodak he has the furnace pre­
pared for their execution.
The three Israelites are cast into the furnace, and are seen
standing unhurt in the fire with a fourth figure among them.
With this angel, they sing (the Benedicite) in praise of their
God.
Nebuchadnezzar summons them to come out of the fur­
nace and they reappear quite untouched by the fire. Nebu­
chadnezzar repudiates his Astrologer and is converted to the
God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, “ Who hath sent
his angel And delivered them who put their trust in him.”
The protagonists resume their Monks’ habits and the Abbot
makes a final address to the congregation before the proces­
sion re-forms and departs singing the hymn to which the cast
had entered.
The Burning Fiery Furnace is Britten’s second parable for church
performance and it seems at this point in time to be essentially
a sequel. It is hard to imagine that it could, accidentally, have
been the first of the genre : “ The Burning Fiery Furnace develops
the convention invented by Benjamin Britten for Curlew River”
(William Plomer, in a programme note to the first produc­
tion). To what extent can one invent a convention? Particu­
larly in opera, “ convention” implies some technique or
artifice understood by the audience— and something which
would not be fully understood unless it had become “ con­
ventional” . Conventions evolve.*
Much of the success of Curlew River lies in the extent to
which the limiting and stylised procedure (which is what
Plomer calls “ the convention” ) arises naturally from the
material of the drama. Three reactions are, I think, possible
to Curlew River: that it is an entirely arbitrary novelty; that it
is so redolent of dramatic traditions native to both this country
and Japan that it can be seen as a culmination of them rather
than a new departure ; that the form is the only satisfactory one
in which to express this particular story. When we come
to The Burning Fiery Furnace there is no inevitability in the
relationship between form and subject. The Furnace has a
diffuse plot (dealing not with individual grief but conflicting
races, and not with an interior spiritual miracle but with
spectacular paganism) which is crammed into the forms of
Curlew River. It is at this point that these forms start to become

* J. D. S. Pendlebury, in Ancient Crete , points out that no Cretan potter

turned over in bed and informed his wife, “From now on it’ll be Late
Minoan III” ; and while, on the other hand, Gluck informed a great
number of people that from 1767 overtures were to become relevant to
the dramas they introduced, this never became conventional in his life­
time.
204 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

conventions. Nevertheless, The Burning Fiery Furnace is a less

esoteric experience than Curlew River. The musical material is
more varied, there is more polyphony, more spectacle, more
entertainment (in Curlew River the Madwoman had to “ enter­
tain” the Ferryman and his passengers with her singing, which
was no entertainment for the audience. In The Furnace both
the Babylonian and the twentieth-century audiences are
entertained by the diversion during the feast)— there is more
action in the score and on the stage.
The Burning Fiery Furnace also seems less remote because the
story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego is a generally
familiar one which involves the audience— or at least the
medieval congregation they are representing— in identifica­
tion with the three young men. It is from their point of view
that we see the country of their captivity : the opera is about
exotic Babylon rather than stateless Judah. In consequence it
is a highly coloured picture of the “ outlandish” nation that
dominates the opera. “ To them we are the foreigners” , one
faction among the prejudiced courtiers perceives, and it is
this view thich dictates the colouring and musical diction of
the opera. There are three great spectacles in the opera— the
feast, the image of Merodak, and the furnace. And something
of the richness of sounds which expresses these is implicit from
the first notes of the opera.
The plainsong, “ Salus aeterna!\ with which the work opens,
indicates a potential intervalic range far wider than “ Te
lucis” , which opened Curlew River— it spans a minor seventh
instead of a fourth and outlines chordal shapes. This is im­
portant to the use of this material in the opera— unlike Curlew
River the music does not expand physically from the limited
intervals of the plainsong. The Abbot’s introduction is already
wide-ranging, freely derived from “ Salus aeterna” . But in con­
junction with the plainsong his introduction establishes in the
first ten bars a sufficiently significant style for the Jewish/
Christian norm of the opera that the phrase
THE B U RN I N G F I E R Y F U R N A C E 205

EX. 93

1 I1111111 i r r h 1 r f ‘ p 1
To that im - p e .r ia l c i-ty , Ba - - by.Ion

stands out as a colourful signpost to the foreign element which

is to be fully explored. We are not only made aware of its
foreignness: before the end of the introduction our view of
Babylon is morally prejudged when Ex. 93 is used for the
words “ an evil man” . The other distinctive phrase of the
Abbot’s introduction is
ex. 94

,;7 , -, .. I* ■ I =
They ne-ver must in an - y way Be - tray— their faith.

which is developed from a phrase of the plainsong— at “ Mox

tua spontanea” — with the jagged interval of the minor ninth
created by transposing one note down an octave. This phrase
expresses the identity of the three young men throughout the
opera— closely associating them with the plainsong and there­
fore the audience, medieval and twentieth-century; it also
conveys something of their uncomfortable non-conformity as
seen by the Babylonians. It is transferred to the Monks when
they utter the interior theme of the drama— the theme of the
medieval instruction—

God give us all

The strength to stand
Against the burning,
Murderous world !

The theme of the whole drama is a quality of character,

“ steadfastness” — which the three young men possess and
Nebuchadnezzar conspicuously lacks, even in his conversion.
2o6 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

The ceremonial robing is carried on during a heterophonic

variation of “ Salus aeterna” — more complex than the corres­
ponding number in Curlew River, with a cadenza-like harp
line which picks out and extends the intervals of a third in
the plainsong. The herald announces the feast in honour of
the three young men. The trombone, loosely decorating the
vocal line, is full of “ Babylon” arpeggios, and when Ananias,
Misael and Azarias acknowledge the invitation the horn re­
calls E x . 94.
In the musical language of Babylon individual words are
set to marked and precise rhythms which contrast with the
plainsong, the Abbot’s and the Jewish music. In particular

we have J ^ a „d J! JlJ and the renaming of

Neb - u - chad-nezz- ar Bab - y - Ion

the three young men as j j > ? j' y}\ j*

‘ Shad-rach, Me-shach, A b - ed - ne - go *

( The Burning Fiery Furnace is based on a style of thematically

significant recitative rather than the essentially lyrical diction
in Curlew River— this is as much a result of the compression
and limitation of the incidents as it is a method of characteris­
ing the verbally eloquent public life of Babylon. The Jewish
music is close to the overall style of Curlew River, without ever
having sufficient room for expansion to be lyrical. It is
governed by the intervals of the plainsong, it is a-metric, and
most of the heterophony in the opera— for example, their big
central soliloquy, “ We do not lack enemies” — occurs in their
music. It is very direct and economical : by the end of that
soliloquy the three young men are identified in a single chord.
The Babylonian music is purposely less refined— its primitive
ethos is demonstrated in its rhythmic and generally metrical
style, and it is never condensed as in the example of the
single chord; it takes place in spectacular contexts— the
herald’s two proclamations, the feasting, the hymn to Mero-
dak, and above all the processional march. It is melodically
THE B URNI NG F I ER Y F U R N A C E 207

short-winded rather than compressed. The courtiers either

chatter, or imitate instrumental flourishes.)
Two styles of chorus ensue and the recitative idiom is
carried through into “ O joyful occasion The King gives a
feast” — a spontaneous chorus we would have called “ gossip
type” in Peter Grimes. (The Babylonians are great gossips and
have plenty of these self-revealing choruses without ever quite
revealing enough of themselves for the purposes of characteri­
sation. We never know their real attitude to their religion—
we never know the Astrologer’s— and we can only suspect,
not demonstrate, that Nebuchadnezzar is the only spiritually
aware Babylonian). For the arrival of Nebuchadnezzar, a
festive march with heterophonic flourishes for flute, harp and
horn is transferred to the chorus, imposing instrumental func­
tion and rhythm on the voices. Probably we are meant to
identify not a little with the Babylonians, too. Dramatically
they are an average enough civilisation: it is the musical
scheme of the drama and the force of continuing Christianity
implied in the “ convention” (above all, in the use of plain-
song) that commits us to the three young men.
Nebuchadnezzar is perhaps the most colourful convert in
the Old Testament. In this scene we see him as a thriving
and popular ruler. He is intuitively— or under divine guid­
ance— drawn to the Jewish exiles (and discerning enough to
have turned the sack of Jerusalem into a compulsory “ brain-
drain” ). At the same time he is deeply dependent on the
Astrologer : his opening recitative is accompanied by references
to Ex. 93 and Ex. 94 but is derived from the intervals of
2 o8 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

— a phrase which is associated with the pagan magic of the

Astrologer and expresses another aspect of exotic Babylon.
The three young men are colourless in comparison— their
first ensemble, based on Ex. 94, is typical of their unanimity
of character and the uninteresting rightness of everything
they do, whether it is replying with exaggerated courtesy to
Nebuchadnezzar’s kingly hospitality or making their avowal
of steadfastness which gets them into the furnace. There is
no attempt at idiosyncratic characterisation— their role as
audience representative is too important, and they have
also to portray the loneliness and persecution of a whole
race.
The entertainment by the acolytes is refreshingly thin and
active music after the “ wallowing in excessive feast” :

e x . 96
A colytb

The clarity of the tunes and the transparent structure is as

satisfying as all of Britten’s music for children. In such a
THE B URNI NG F I E R Y F U R N A C E 209
tightly packed work there is no room for a mere interlude.
The episode has a dramatic function apart from adding an
extra layer to the dimensionally rich feast scene— the carefree
detachment of the boys highlights both the hedonistic
Babylonians and the conscience-wracked Jews. The “ waters
of Babylon” are a suggested comparison with two opposites,
both the “ King’s precious wine” and the “ sevenfold heat O f
the burning fiery furnace” . The entertainment represents
innocence set against civilisation— the dark civilisation and
the enlightened.
When the three young men refuse to join in the feast,
another relationship is developed: that between Nebucha­
dnezzar and his Astrologer. Nothing could be more genuinely
gracious than Nebuchadnezzar gently pressing Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abednego to partake :

E x . 97
N e bu ch ad n ezzar

Come now, we can not have you liv - ing on - ly on your ex - cell -

Double Bass

■ ent rep - u - ta - tions.

210 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

(The whole dialogue takes place over an inversion on the

viola of their excuse, “ We are very small eaters” : in its rising
form it becomes identified with “ the sacred laws of Israel” .)
The Astrologer was quick to draw attention to their abstinence
— to Ex. 94 he rudely sings :

There may be in your country

Bad behaviour at table,
But here in Babylon
Our guests do not insult us.

When the King is faced with the nonconformity of his pro­

teges the Astrologer reminds him of the magic powers at issue,
in Ex. 95 :
I warned you
The stars were against you.
This rash innovation,
Invasion of immigrants,
Puts Babylon in danger.

The moral judgements of this opera are pre-empted by

virtue of the Abbot’s words in the Prologue. It is not, other­
wise, easy to make out a case for the Astrologer being the
villain of the drama: he probably is “ always faithful” to
Nebuchadnezzar and is certainly “ always faithful to [his]
duty” if we regard that duty as promoting the worship of
Merodak in whom the Astrologer may well sincerely believe.
On the other side we can show that he is a graceless character
musically, he is rude and wilfully inaccurate (“ invasion of
immigrants” is an emotive phrase, but it has nothing to do
with the captivity of Judah), and both at the feast and before
the image of Merodak it is he who points out the defaulting
Jews of whom he is professionallyjealous. His power over Nebu­
chadnezzar is indisputable. At the mention of the stars, Nebu­
chadnezzar launches into an arioso of panic and isolation :
T HE B U RN I N G F I E R Y F U R N A C E 211

EX. 98
N e bu ch ad n ezzar

If ihc stars are a.gainsi me Then how can I go-vern, can I go-vern?

It is the nearest he comes to an aria in the opera. (I think we

miss the revelations of introspective arias in the characterisa­
tion of both Nebuchadnezzar and the Astrologer. The ambigu­
ities in both their characters could have been resolved in one
soliloquy each.) We can compare the panic with that which
seizes Vere, his Scylla and Charybdis, when he realises the
trial he has set in motion will condemn not Billy but himself;
he is a very similarly impetuous man. And the isolation with
Gloriana in her dilemma over Essex’s death. The crises of
authority are shown, in Britten’s operas, to be just as painful
as the physical punishment with which they are usually
associated. Nebuchadnezzar, his “ best intentions” frustrated,
is a baffled barbarian— the antithesis of the steadfast man.
His courtiers do not share his indecision. Some of them align
themselves with the Astrologer, in Babylonian intervals (see
Ex. 93); others in a flowing phrase derived from Ex. 98
present a less prejudiced point of view:
He is jealous,
The young men are harmless . . .
To them we are the foreigners!
The pagan and Christian powers confront each other when
the Astrologer’s (off-stage) ominous mention of “ Merodak”
is immediately followed by a return (on the horn) of the
opening of the plainsong: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego
are left alone in physical and ideological isolation. They cling
vocally to the symbol of their faith— between changing ver­
sions of the opening phrase of “ Salus aeterna” they discuss their
212 THE O PERA S OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

plight in phrases which use only the notes of the preceding

variation of the plainsong:

They are only released from this tightly organised form when
they sing, to the Salus aeterna phrase, “ What we are we remain”
— and the plainsong melody is completed with more flowing
embellishment, interrupted three times by the line “ Lord,
help us in our loneliness” with which this detailed exploration
of the hymn ends.
The Herald, in a similar passage to the opening of the
drama, announces the setting-up of the image of Merodak,
and the required worship. The agitation of the three young
men is indicated in their Ex. 94 phrase on the harp and the
3# chord, which was finally associated with “ Lord, help us
in our loneliness” in the previous ensemble, on the organ.
This chord is used throughout their short hymn— “ Blessed
art Thou, O Lord God of our fathers” — and at the same time
in the orchestra the phrases of the processional march are
assembled.
The procession of the musicians follows. It is interesting to
THE BURNI NG F I E R Y F U R N A C E 213

see how this incident is apparently dictated by the plot and

language of the original story, while at the same time what
is happening— the involvement of the orchestra in the physical
action of the drama— is something towards which each of
Britten’s chamber operas has been tending. The phrases
which are put together to make the march are stated singly
during the prayer of the three young men mentioned above.
The Babylonian drum has a five-bar repeated pattern occa­
sionally combined with or relieved by the small cymbals. The
other instruments add their individual themes in turn, with­
out any extensions or development : the horn has a leaping,
dotted phrase with plenty of Babylonian fourths, but essenti­
ally decorating a rising major chord which turns in by a
semitone. The trombone embellishes the same shape with
chromatic detail, a tone lower. The viola has wide arpeggios
on D and E|? which combine with, on their first appearance,
an intense flute theme of four chromatically descending notes;
there is a busy, small-compassed phrase for the glockenspiel,
concerned with a rising major chord which turns up by a tone,
and a scale-wise tune for the Little Harp, filling in various
intervals of a fifth. These are combined cumulatively in an
orgy of sound. As the image of Merodak is raised the
themes merge into sweeping glissandi and the chorus joins in
with phrases based on a rising fourth or fifth, turning down or
up by a semitone— phrases which are literally a gross simplifi­
cation of the various strands of the march. The hymn to
Merodak arises out of the march, dramatically and themati­
cally— a grovelling, barbaric, and superbly pagan utterance :
ex. 100

M c-ro - - dak! Lord— of crc-a -tio n , Wc bow___down be-fore you.

A - dorè you, Im -p lo rc you

214 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

Nebuchadnezzar and the Astrologer exhort the people to a

louder demonstration and in between fortissimo unanimous
cries o f“ Merodak !” (chorded in superimposed fourths derived
from Ex. 95) and over a tense organ trill, the Astrologer twice
cautiously draws Nebuchadnezzar’s attention to the default­
ing Jews. Nebuchadnezzar replies:
Must you disturb me while I pray ?
Let me alone ! . . .
Must you bring complainings at this time ?
Go away!
Nebuchadnezzar’s reluctance is striking. He is possibly the
only sincere worshipper before the image of Merodak and,
impulsive and enthusiastic, he is not interested in the dis­
obedience of the Jews. The third time the Astrologer speaks
he mentions not their disobedience but their impiety—
Sir, they serve not your God,
Nor worship the image
You have set up

— and this rouses the king to send for them, when he puts his
and their predicaments with undeniable though inflexible
fairness. Nebuchadnezzar is not yet enraged; that he has to
repeat much of the Herald’s music, when he reminds the
three young men of his decree, gives the semblance of a trial
to his interrogation.
The three young men reply with tranquil acceptance in
the opening phrase of “ Salus aeterna” and their characteristic
3# chord. Because the musical organisation of the Parables is
so compressed, characters who repeat the words of others
almost always repeat their notes, too— so, without a hint of
the mocking parody that the Ferryman exercises over the
Madwoman in Curlew River, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-
nego sing “ Nor worship the image of gold Which you have
set up, in Babylon the Great” to the theme of the hymn to
THE B URNI NG F I E R Y F U R N A C E 215
Merodak. (Their perpetual discreet politeness indicates that
this is a “ conventional” parody, not a mocking one.) It does,
however, provoke Nebuchadnezzar into making his first un­
prompted decision in the opera:
ex. 101
N ebuchadnezzar

Ah ! Heat the burn - ing fie - ry fur - nace !

This becomes a chorus, “ See them all go up in smoke” , with

the theme divided between and developed by the trombone
(bar 1) and the horn and organ (bar 2), and a piccolo phrase
which extends the “ Babylon” arpeggio. At the climax of this
movement, “ the flames open and the Three are seen standing
unhurt with a radiant figure beside them” . The full body of
sound gives way to the unaccompanied Benedicite which,
with interruptions, continues until the end of the drama :
ex. 102
A ngel

O - all ye works of the Lord, bless ye the J Lord.

A nanias
AZAR1AS

Nebuchadnezzer is quick to perceive that a miracle has ocur-

red (or is it just that the drama is being enacted in such a
small time-scale?) and his conversion is already manifest
when he sings the Salus aeterna phrase for “ And the form of
the fourth Is like the Son of God.” When the three young men
come out of the furnace he inspects them with immense
caution, however, while the double bass and viola remind him
2 l6 THE O PERA S OF BENJAMI N B RI T T E N

of the “ sevenfold heat” which has not even scorched their

garments.
Nebuchadnezzar rejects the Astrologer with more pre­
judice than he showed in confronting the three young men
with their default. The imperfections in Nebuchadnezzar’s
character— his irrational enthusiams and the injustice that
repeatedly results from them— are nowhere more clearly
shown than in this scene between the King and his sage. Ex.
95 is everywhere dominant, on the flute and harp and in the
voice lines. The Astrologer has a curious parting shot: “ But
let me remind you, I can find the truth in dreams” , which
perhaps indicates that we are going to see him matched with
Daniel in a later work. It seems to have no relevance to this
episode. More probably it leans heavily on the audience’s
knowledge of subsequent events (Daniel V I)— that Nebu­
chadnezzar does go back to his “ consultant of the stars” to
interpret his dreams: his lack of “ steadfastness” again. It is
nevertheless very moving when Nebuchadnezzar unites the
two elements of conflict (“ Salus aeterna” and Babylon) in the
phrase “ There is no God except this God” .
The Benedicite continues, with Nebuchadnezzar aligned
with the three young men and the courtiers joining in anti-
phonally. The angel phrase continues to float above the
whole. It is a quiet climax, very simple musically: the
miracle is all. It is remarkable that both Parables court the
opportunity of portraying miracles in music and both deal
with the visions in a style so self-effacing at this point as to
throw all the emphasis on to the verbal or visual account of
the supernatural. Britten belongs (like Shakespeare, Dickens,
Bach, Schumann) among artists who are concerned to portray
human suffering, and even martyrdom, rather than among
the interpreters of the Beatific Vision (Handel, Haydn,
Traherne, Herbert, and C. S. Lewis). It leads directly into
the robing music and the Abbot’s epilogue which indicates
musically as well as verbally that “ Over that great city,
THE BURNI NG F I ER Y F U R N A C E 217

Babylon . . . A new light shines” — Babylon is sung for the

first time without its pagan-characterising motif; it spans
instead a minor seventh— the compass of the plainsong. “ A
new light” is sung to the rising fourths of Ex. 96— it has
literally taken the place of the Astrologer’s rule. The Abbot
naturally uses Ex. 101 for his development of the interior
theme :
Friends, remember!
Gold is tried in the fire,
And the mettle of man
In the furnace of humiliation.

The chorus complete this to Ex. 94—

God give us all

The strength to walk
Safe in the burning furnace
O f this murderous world.

And because the plainsong has been more dramatically inte­

grated in this work than it was in Curlew River, it is with a
sense of concluding the inner drama, the Nebuchadnezzar
story, rather than the completion of a formal frame, that the
Monks take up Salus aeterna for their final procession.
 Chapter twelve

Britten and Opera

 Throughout the canon of eleven operas discussed in this book
runs the fact, paradox or truism, of their apparent variety and
their internal predictability. Their variety we can dispose of
in a sentence: they are immensely individual operas. Their
predictability, or rather the predictability of Britten’s
approach to the different dramas, requires amplification.
Britten’s approach to the music, to the libretto and to the
drama itself is sufficiently consistent to be characteristic, and
it is this approach— always having in mind the wide context
in which it is operating— which I shall try to define and
illustrate in this chapter.
The most characteristic aspect of Britten’s approach to the
music is his concern to express drama in terms of sheer
physical sound. This is a very sensuous approach to audience
manipulation, the equivalent of rhetoric. We have a series of
highly coloured dramas, a character depicted in a single
sonority or timbre ; events, even, conveyed in a succession of
themeless sounds. But Britten’s expression of drama through
sonorities is a more economical process than the previous
sentence implies. There is a constant tendency throughout the
operas to refine orchestral forces and expose chamber groups,
to communicate the characteristic qualities of voices and
instruments as individually as possible, a technique which
tends towards the utmost precision of communication and
unambiguous presentation of the essential colour of the drama.
The thinness of orchestral sound in some of the full operas
is perhaps surprising until we regard it in this light— as
relevant communication. There are, for example, numerous
occasions in Billy Budd where a couple of woodwind instru­
ments are all that is used to introduce significant material—
as at the opening of the first scene. Or even one— the saxo­
phone solo in the Novice’s flogging scene. Or a single family
B R I T T E N AND O P E R A 221

of instruments— the trumpet and trombone call to vigilance

that breaks up the scene in Vere’s cabin in Act I, Scene 2 ; and
the trombones plus tuba which have the “ hanging from the
yard-arm” phrase at Billy’s execution. Or a temporarily
created family— the oboes and muted trumpets when the
Novice tries to bribe Billy. The culmination of the eloquence
of sonority, when Vere tells Billy the verdict of death, is only
possible when in the whole of the opera the speaking quality
of sounds is exposed. In the chamber operas we find the crea­
tion of many smaller ensembles from the already limited
forces. There are, as in the full operas, many moments when
the instrumental texture is carried on by one instrument. In
Lucretia it is initially the flute alone which depicts the Tiber,
the cor anglais which sings a duet with the doomed Lucretia;
a family of instruments to be explored here is the bass, tenor,
and side drums, notably in Tarquinius’s stealthy approach to
Lucretia’s bed (a passage from which we could trace the very
vital and individual use made of drums in the Parables), and
the oboe and bassoon in octaves in Lucretia’s wreath-making
song.
During the whole series of operas, Britten increasingly uses
instruments to express not just colour— anonymous, if exciting
or beautiful timbre— but character and personality. The
tensions and drama here are created by balancing the natural
and universal character of the instrument with the unique
and idiosyncratic character of the protagonist with which it is
identified. The celesta, for example, is an intrinsically chilling
and supernatural sound. When it is heard briefly at the death
of the second apprentice in Peter Grimes it evokes little more
than this inevitable other-worldliness. In The Turn of the
Screw, by contrast, it plays a much bigger part, and while
remaining supernatural in its impact it also expresses, through
its context and association with Quint, a positively evil aura.
In A Midsummer Night's Dream it has again a prominent role.
Here, the style of the music is quite different from the arpeg­
222 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B RI T T E N

gio layout of the passage in Peter Grimes and many of its

appearances in The Screw. It brings its supernatural colouring
to the spell music, but in the context of this drama and in
association with Oberon it conveys the detached amorality of
his passionless power. The flute in Curlew River is a very
idiosyncratic one: it is half identified with the Madwoman (it
is her “ voice” before we hear her sing) and half independent
of her (indeed, positively eluding her when it becomes the
cry of the curlews). The whole drama is condensed into the
relationship between the Madwoman’s voice and the flute:
the instrument is both the cause and the expression of her
madness. In Noye’s Fludde the sonorities not only express but
aurally depict the drama. The concluding Addison hymn is a
conglomeration of sounds where the individual lines are so
sharply, even crudely, coloured that they remain separate,
not homogenous, and thus demonstrate a coming together of
a great many centuries of faith from the mythical Noye
through our own Middle Ages, Tallis, Addison, to the present
— rather than a conclusion in any one of these periods
which would limit the implications of the expression of
faith.
Britten’s pursuit of significant sound is not restricted to the
orchestra. The Choruses are also to be listened to from this
point of view. All the Choruses in Britten’s operas are involved
in the drama— acting Choruses. In Peter Grimes, Billy Budd,
Noye, and The Burning Fiery Furnace they have real personality
and intensify rather than relieve the protagonists’ scenes. In
Grimes and Budd particularly their collective character is vital
to the progress of the plot; in these operas they are less a part
of the background picture than an accumulation of indivi­
duals. In Billy Budd even their background function is broken
down into a series of definitions in the structure of the sea-
fight scene: the Chorus has a part to act whether it is as
potential mutineers or efficient seamen. Curlew River, because
of its “ convention” , appears to have some choruses which
B R I T T E N AND O P E R A 223

comment on the action. But although it is not the pilgrims

talking when the Chorus sings

Or will they also laugh at her

As she wanders raving, and all alone ?

it is the Monks, impersonating the pilgrims, who are indeed

acting, and in this sense the Chorus is a dramatically involved
one. The Furnace is so packed with action and incident that
there is no room even for this half-detachment: the Monks
become Nebuchadnezzar’s courtiers for the duration of the
inner drama, and sing accordingly. Gloriana is a special case :
the Chorus does comment, in the public scenes, but it is not a
simple assembly of individuals like the people of the Borough
in Peter Grimes ; in Gloriana it represents the whole nation and
expresses its reactions spontaneously enough if we remember
the extra dimension it involves.
As a result (of the dramatic involvement of the Chorus),
the sounds we hear from the Choruses are basically representa­
tional ones. Even the big fugai scenes in Grimes have a
dramatic cause for the given texture : the confusion and con­
cern. at the approaching storm is portrayed quite naturally
(as well as formally) in the ensemble “ Look out for squalls!”
in Act I ; the big chorus movement, “ Grimes is at his exercise” ,
in the second act, conveys in terms of sound the swift inter­
change of ideas and the spreading into unanimity of the key
thought. The working songs of the men in Billy Budd are
written in a way that condenses much of the drama into the
differences between the successive versions: the suppressed
tensions in “ O heave” in the first scene of Act I are expressed
in the fleeting mutiny attempt at the end of the opera. The
potential tensions are indicated when to the flowing, mono­
tonous first statement of the Chorus is added the theme a
major third higher, first in canon then simultaneously. This is
the potential rebellion which reaches its frustrated, poignant
224 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

climax not in the violent diminution of the theme which is

sung during the brief mutiny episode but in the largamente
transformation of it as the men are subdued and dispersed :
the climax of the potential drama in the first-act chorus is
frustration, not rebellion— this is what the opera is about.
The fact that in the last act it is a wordless chorus concen­
trates our attention on the actual sound of the drama.
Another characteristic of Britten’s approach to the music
is his tendency to express drama in lyrical terms. This is
really the other side of the sonority coin— it is at these
moments not the sound of massed or selected choral or
instrumental forces but of a single voice, which is used so that
it is subservient to neither the words nor the external action.
Britten’s approach to opera is essentially lyrical and there is
a tendency throughout the operas to tackle not only character­
isation but situations and incidents— not in overtly“ dramatic”
music but in melody. There are, significantly, many chara­
cters in the operas which are created not just in aria but in
song— Billy, Essex (and Cecil and Raleigh), Miles, and
Flute. And many others, notably Quint, Grimes, Albert
Herring, and Oberon, who are revealed almost exclusively
in closed solo numbers rather than in action, dialogue or
recitative. It becomes, for Grimes, Herring, and perhaps
Miles, a paradox that these characters reveal in song and aria
their true natures which could not be deduced from their
actions: Quint and Essex, on the other hand, used closed
lyrical forms to communicate a misleading impression of their
characters (they both attempt seduction in song, and both
fail).
But the lyricism throughout Britten’s operas has a wider
function than characterisation: complex situations are
conveyed to the audience in surprisingly lyrical contexts.
Here are five of them. The actual rape of Lucretia is led
up to in a duet and formalised in an ensemble which is
the second of three variations of a particularly expansive
B R I T T E N AND O P E R A 225

“ motto melody” . The confrontation of Lucretia and Col-

latinus in the last scene is not argued but stated (in terms of
melody— the cor anglais solo) : after recollected fragments of
earlier melodies, Lucretia has the final variation of the motto
melody, then she and Collatinus share a solemn andante which
disintegrates as she stabs herself. In the last scene of The
Screw, the tense questioning and verbal fencing is communi­
cated in the freshest of melodic lines— “ Dearest Miles, I love
to be with you, what else should I stay for?” In the trial
scene in Billy Budd the officers reach their verdict in a long
melody which emerges from the trio, passing from one voice
to another, in between unison statements of “ We’ve no
choice” . Finally, The Little Sweep has a comparatively extended
ensemble movement, continuously lyrical— “ O why do you
weep through the working day?” — to represent a conversa­
tion.
What has the lyrical approach added to these five events ?
In the two examples from Lucretia it prevents the physical
violence from dominating the episodes and allows the music
to express the artistic truth of the incidents : the recurrence
of the “ motto melody” at both climaxes could indicate either
the apparent cause of the tragic events—Junius’s jealousy
which is described in the first appearance of the motto
melody, or, by its very repetition, and therefore inevitability,
it could imply “ fate” as being the real cause of the tragedy—
whatever this would mean. In The Screw the relevant drama­
tic process is the passacaglia, but this generates a fluently
lyrical superstructure to demonstrate the passionate posses­
siveness of the Governess and the dilemma which for Miles
has been expressed throughout the opera as song, or rather
songs— his own “ Maio” and Quint’s “ On the paths, in the
woods” . The trial scene in Billy Budd is a remarkable move­
ment from any aspect. For our purposes here, the lyrical
treatment of the officers’ deliberations is used partly to
indicate the actual progress of the discussion : the unanimity
226 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

of their opinions here (in contrast to their immediate re­

actions to Claggart’s death) is shown when each adds corro­
borative arguments to complete the melodic line :

f i rs t l i e u t e n a n t : Poor fellow, who could save him?

lieutenant RATGLiFFE : Ay! there’s nought to discuss.
s a i l i n g ma s t e r : Ay! he must swing.
all : We’ve no choice.
f i rs t l i e u t e n a n t : There’s the Mutiny Act.
l i e u t e n a n t r a t g l i f f e : There are the King’s Regula­
tions.
s a i l i n g m a s t e r : There are the Articles of War.
a l l : We’ve no choice.
f i rs t l i e u t e n a n t : Claggart I never liked . . .
s a i l i n g m a s t e r : Claggart, no one liked Claggart . . .
l i e u t e n a n t r a t g l i f f e : Claggart was hard on thepi
all . . .

The proliferation of thoughts is also contrasted with the

summing up— “ We’ve no choice” . The conversation in The
Little Sweep is one that could never have taken place in the
dialogue and the deliberately formal treatment of the words
enables them to be stated by the children— the thoughts
expressed are far too sophisticated philosophically to be
uttered in realistic conversation, yet once they are used as the
basis of a closed number they are expressible in the simplest
musical diction which for these protagonists is song.
The third aspect of Britten’s approach to the music I shall
illustrate is his expression of drama through form. Form in
opera has to do with the two processes, separateness and con­
tinuity. They are actually a single factor, each being a
matter of degree: continuity may be a question of themes,
keys, sonorities or verbal or musical thought; separateness
may exist within this, as an episode. Separateness comes about
through contrasted means of expression which for the most
B R I T T E N AND O P E R A 227

part of the history of opera have been differentiated as

recitative and aria. Such a dichotomy from the point of view
of style is no longer viable, but the contrasted functions
remain : continuity is for the action of the drama (traditionally
recitative) and separateness for the musical exploration
of the emotional repercussions (traditionally aria).
Since Britten is particularly concerned with characterisa­
tion— and some of his operas consist of characterisation and
little else: Grimes, Gloriano,, The Screw, Curlew River, for
example— he is inevitably concerned with the emotional
exploration traditionally conducted in aria and in separated
numbers. This is why there are in his operas a lot of separate
numbers which are, in fact, arias— for Grimes, Gloriana,
Quint, and the Madwoman. There are also whole scenes,
however, for these protagonists which are solely concerned
with displaying the one character but in a style and formal
process far removed from the traditionally lyrical definition
of aria : they are arias in function rather than in form. And
they are not usually separated from the continuous action.
In Peter Grimes, Interlude IV and the whole of Act II,
Scene 2, are a complete movement. In spite of some quite
definite action (including the death of the boy) the whole
expanse of music has the function of an aria, and the dramatic
conflict of reality and dreams in the mind of Peter Grimes is
organised as relevantly in the music as the key and subject
groups of eighteenth-century sonatas. “ Reality” is dealt with
at length in the passacaglia, the bass of which is Grimes’s
acceptance of himself, the notes to which he sang “ [so be it,
and] God have mercy upon me” . Fragments of the passaca­
glia continue into the scene to interrupt real enough action as
Grimes and his apprentice prepare to go fishing. Reality not
only interposes in the scene but is also integrated into the new
material— Grimes’s intitial “ Go there” decorates a falling
twelfth (the viola theme of the passacaglia decorates a falling
fifth) and ends with three characteristic notes from the viola
228 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

theme. The central section of the scene is the dream and here
the music departs completely from the passacaglia material
(and reality). It has its own thematic unity: in the outer
Lento section the conspicuous phrase of a rising major sixth
turning inwards at the words “ [in dreams I ’ve built myself
some] kindlier home” and “ [where there’ll be no more fear
and] no more storm” — this visionary, aspiring interval is
incorporated mechanically into the accompaniment of the
middle [Adagio) section which builds upon the verbal and
musical suggestions of the Lento bars. When the music returns
to the Lento material, “ But dreaming builds what dreaming
can disown” , the fact that Grimes’s dreams are destroyed
within this dream section shows that it is not only in reality
that Grimes cannot achieve his ideal but also in the (for him)
greater reality of his dreams :

I hear those voices that will not be drowned

Calling, there is no stone
In earth’s thickness to make a home,
That you can build with and remain alone.

Significantly, reality (and the passacaglia material) returns

not with Hobson’s drum but with what Grimes— confused
now about what is true and what appears to be happening—
deludedly thinks is the cause of the procession; he says to the
boy:
You’ve been talking!
You and that bitch were gossiping!
What lies have you been telling?

Reality (the last appearance of the passacaglia bass) inevit­

ably accompanies Balstrode’s exit down the cliff, in pursuit of
the truth. The musical structure of this scene illuminates the
whole dramatic predicament of Grimes. It is the heart of the
drama. It can also be defined as an aria.
B R I T T E N AND O P E R A 229

It is owing to the character-based drama which is typical

of Britten’s operas that these scenes are “ separate” in function
and “ continuous” in structure. They do not, in the spirit of
Gluck’s criticisms of aria form, hold up the action; instead,
the drama at that point happens to be going on in Grimes’s
mind. However, there are certainly moments in Peter Grimes
and other operas which do go against the spirit of Gluck’s
operatic ideal (which is neither a criticism of Britten nor of
Gluck, but simply a reminder that there are always these two
approaches to drama in music).* In all the operas— except
Billy Buddy The Screw, The Furnace— there are single lyrical
numbers, separated arias, for minor characters which expand
rather uninteresting roles and add nothing to the action.
Ellen Orford’s arias are particularly unsatisfactory in this
respect— nothing in them illuminates in any degree her
relationship with Grimes or shows what he sought from her
(or saw in her), unless the point is that as the mother-
substitute he craves she is as illusory as the home he identifies
her with: too critical and untrustful (of Grimes) and too
undiscriminating in her protective care. To a much less
disturbing extent, Bianca’s aria of Lucretia’s girlhood,
Florence Pike’s aria at the beginning of the fete scene, Cecil’s
song of government, and the Traveller’s opening passage in
Curlew River are demonstrably aria moments, and indicate
that Britten’s approach to opera includes and enjoys the
separate along with the continuous.
Continuity of form, however, exists virtually throughout
the tauter dramas of Billy Budd and The Turn of the Screw9
with large-scale movements in the former and compact vocal

* Opera is continually in search of not so much first principles as pre­

historic principles, seeking to justify its art by the conventions of previous
ages and literary forms. On the day I am writing this Harrison Birtwistle
says of his new work, M onodram a : “Our inspiration has been Greek
tragedy, which originally evolved from a competition in which one
character changed masks and so identity, and that’s what happens in our
work . . ( T h e T im es, 30 May 1967).
230 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B RI T T E N

episodes corresponding to the instrumental variations in the

latter. The near absence of aria style (single lyrical numbers)
in these operas results in the near absence of recitative with
the consequence that all the characterisation is more econo­
mical and compressed: from all the music the Governess
sings, throughout the opera, we could deduce an aria (we have
the Soliloquy, “ Lost in my labyrinth” , but this states rather
than develops her mental condition: it has aria style without
fully having aria function)— the material is there, a series of
variations of what, in my chapter on The Screw, I called the
Dramatic Theme ; but it is incorporated into the scenes, to run
parallel to the more expansive instrumental variations.
Britten is most often concerned with such monothematic
processes; hence the large number of actual passacaglia and
variations (in Lucretia, The Screw, The Dream, and The
Furnace, for example). This approach turns the whole of a
very motivically constructed opera— Lucretia or Budd— into a
vast set of variations superimposed on the number-by-number
forms, an apt structure in which to represent the singleness of
purpose of his operas, the narrow concentration on the drama,
the comparative lack of contrasting subsidiary material. The
multi-plots of the Dream have, predictably, been cut by one in
the reduction of the Theseus scenes and what is left is simply
three dramas— the faeries, the lovers, the mechanicals— each
worked out to a considerable extent in monothematic
structures.
Britten’s approach to his libretti is less of a constant than
his approach to the music because of the great variety of
individual personalities he has worked with. Since we have
available only the results, not the process, of collaboration, I
shall try to infer Britten’s approach to the libretti from asses­
sing the extent of their influence on two essentially musical
aspects of the operas : characterisation and style.
To say that a libretto is constructed to be expanded is not
to deprecate but to define its function. Characterisation, for
B R I T T E N AND O P E R A 231

the librettist, is necessarily an inexact art. Many of his actual

words will inevitably be lost to an audience which has not
seen the score (nothing of the total sound of the music need be
lost in this way), and even hearing the words, could a first­
time audience disentangle the sense of Collatinus’s aria,
“ Those who love create fetters which liberate” or even the
syntax of the entire chorus beginning “ Who holds himself
apart lets his pride rise” from Peter Grimes ? The situations the
librettist creates may take on a different emphasis from the
time scale of the music over which he has no control. Did, for
example, the librettists of Billy Budd intend and foresee the
exact degree of impetuosity with which Vere sweeps aside
Claggart’s carefully built-up case against Billy— “ Nay,
you’re mistaken . . .” (a single crotchet rest before Vere’s
words would make a considerable difference to the impact of
his character here) and the incredible and most unoperatic
speed with which he acts after Claggart’s death? Britten’s
librettists have a more substantial problem— or degree of
abrogation— than many others, since his operas are so often
wholly psychological dramas in which the characterisation is
more important than the plot, in which we could say that it
becomes the plot. And characterisation in this depth is
basically developed in the music.
It is a result, then, of the kind of operas Britten writes, that
a great many characters exist far more vitally in their music
than in their words : Gloriana, Vere, Oberon, the Madwoman,
Nebuchadnezzar. Some exist almost wholly in the music:
Grimes, Albert Herring, Quint, Flute, and, rather strangely,
the Male Chorus in Lucretia. These names do not only imply
the extent of the intrinsically musical dimensions of these
dramas. Eight of the above ten roles were originally created
by Peter Pears and it seems quite transparent that the musical
personality of this very great singer has had a considerable
impact on the operas— at least as much impact as the
librettists in the field of characterisation. It is an impact not
232 THE OPERAS OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

always for their good. The unmistakable prominence of the

Pears role in any of the operas has been the main cause of
prevalent misunderstandings about the structure of Gloriarla,
and alters, if it does not destroy, the balance between the two
ghosts in The Turn of the Screw. It may also account for some of
the unsatisfactory elements in Lucretia. The fact that Tar-
quinius appears far less vital in his own music than in that
which the Male Chorus sings about him results in the ambi­
guous motivation of his character : Tarquinius is the one blank
face in an otherwise scrupulously characterised drama, and
this is, I think, because the expression of his character is spilt
between the two roles, and more effective in the narrator
than the actor. However, there is much on the credit side—
the musical dimensions of Grimes, Quint, and the Mad­
woman would have been at least a little different if they had
been written for another singer. And Albert Herring, in­
consistent as he now is, would not have been worth writing an
opera about on the basis of the libretto.
To return to the libretti— their influence on the style of the
operas is perhaps surprisingly more positive than their contri­
bution to the characterisation. The “ gossip” choruses in
Peter Grimes manage to sound representational in spite of the
clumsy words, but how much more spontaneous the trial
scene could have been if the music had not been chained to
the turgid diction and ponderous sentence lengths of the
choruses here— to find how much we have only to compare
these with the wholly apt effect of the “ Peter Grimes” halloos
in the last act, where Britten is free of the unhelpful text.
Lucretia poses a different problem, for in a chamber opera and
without a Chorus it is harder to escape from the text. That
Lucretia is, until the return of Collatinus in the last scene, more
a setting of words than a primarily musical expression of the
drama is a result of the conspicuous and rather complex
libretto. The chamber-opera medium can project the rich
image-packed style of Duncan’s libretto with more com­
B R I T T E N AND O P E R A 233

munication than in a full opera; and the texture of the text

has had a discernible influence on the style, and in particular
it has necessitated the clarity and precise translation into
musical phrases of the recitative.
There is scope, however, for a chamber opera to have a
simpler libretto : The Screw seems to me to be one of the most
intelligent libretti Britten has set. If we compare the charac­
ters of the Governess and Quint as they are presented to the
composer, we can see this difference: the character of the
Governess is fully worked out in the text and the expression
of it is sufficiently direct— “ I have failed!” . . . “ I am use­
less!” . . . “ O Why, Why did I come?” — for the music not
merely to set the words but to vivify them unforgettably. And
yet the music does not add anything to the character of the
Governess which is not indicated in the words. Quint, on the
other hand, is handed over to the composer to be a substan­
tially musical character— “ Miles!” — his words cannot be too
explicit, since they are all extra to the original story; but
Quint, as Henry James created him, does not need to speak,
simply to be— and this the libretto allows, and the music
enables, him to do. His words are allusive and indirect and
the music has to have its motive force in his character, not in
these words. The closest identification of intention between
composer and librettist occurs in the Parables and particularly
Curlew River. It is the more apparent because this work was a
“ special case” for both,* and the starting-point was not a one­
sided, purely literary source, but a finished performance—
a vision of the impact of the completed work before either the
exact end or the means had been worked out. This unusual
circumstance must have contributed to the superb aptness of
the libretto for the intense simplicity of the musical style; and
the unrepetitiveness of both permits a very compressed and
* Curlew R iver “was generated by the strong response, at quite different
times, of the composer and the librettist to performances in Japan of the
Medieval Ao-plays . . .” (William Plomer, in a programme note to T h e
Furnace),
234 THE O PERA S OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

rich dramatic language to emerge. Opera after Curlew River

is a much less blunt instrument !
In the previous chapters of this book we have seen what
immensely individual operas Britten has created. It is, never­
theless, now my aim to show that Britten’s choice of drama is
as predictable as is his expression of it. The dramas he choses
to approach have predictably recurrent themes— themes
which deal with aspects of power, evil, suffering, and increas­
ingly specifically Christian solutions. And most conspic­
uously, themes which produce common characters : the range
of characters in Britten’s operas is not nearly as great as the
range of operas. Thus we have indisputably Grimes’s appren­
tice (or both of them while we are about it) generating Sam in
The Little Sweep and the Madwoman’s son in Curlew River.
These are the complete innocents. By including corrupted
innocence we can add the Novice in Billy Budd, Miles in The
Screw, and possibly, tantalisingly, Lucretia. Peter Grimes is a
richer starting-point. The obvious path is the downwards one
in degrees of brutality: Tarquinius, the Stranger (in Curlew
River), Black Bob (in The Little Sweep), and Claggart. As a
mature, comparative innocent, sacrificed to a community,
Grimes could also claim such surprising descendants as
Albert Herring, Billy Budd, and the three young men of The
Burning Fiery Furnace. Vere’s problems and behaviour also re­
echo through recurring situations in the canon. His closest
alter ego is Gloriana— both are forced to sacrifice what they
love for what they believe to be the good of the people in their
charge. So does Nebuchadnezzar, who is let off rather lightly
from the burdens of kingship, since he has the Astrologer
instead of a conscience, to make the wrong decision for him,
and a miracle to relieve him of the consequences. These
correspondences indicate some of the repetitive ground of the
operas— ground which is repeated only to be additionally
illuminated by Britten’s successive treatment of it.
The dramas that Britten has chosen are, with only one
B R I T T E N AND O P E R A 235

exception (the Dream), essentially moral ones, though this is

not to imply that there is anything facile in the clarity with
which he portrays good and evil in conflict : Quint presents a
very attractive picture of evil, and Grimes a very unattractive
one of innocence. The moral problems are, however, usually
unambiguous: for Lucretia, for Vere, for the Governess, and
for Nebuchadnezzar the situations they face seem at the time
insoluble predicaments, but we, the audience, are never left
in any doubt about the total issues involved.
Britten, then, deals almost exclusively with themes of good
and evil. He is apparently more interested in the effect than
the cause of evil. Black Bob and Quint are the only Devils—
the only completely unredeemable personifications of evil— in
the canon. Claggart, chiefly because of his very beautiful
arias (and given a sense of history in the audience), is human
enough to be understandable, and could be played for sym­
pathy, I imagine. The Astrologer probably acted according
to his principles— that they were unenlightened and that he
was incapable of recognising good when he saw it is no
grounds for condemnation in our time. Tarquinius is curiously
and unsatisfyingly innocent beside Junius, who acts in his
turn with more expediency than malice. The Stranger in
Curlew River does not even appear in the opera : he is probably
more a foreigner, an outlander, like Tarquinius and the
Astrologer, than a sadist. The victims of evil, however, are
fully drawn, even when they do not sing in the opera—
Grimes’s apprentices— or appear in human form— the Mad­
woman’s son. Sam and the Novice have a restrained eloquence
that is completely moving. For these young victims, evil
almost invariably results in physical pain (it is symptomatic
of Miles’s precocity that it brings him mental torment) and
the music is much concerned to portray this. We are far more
involved in the Novice’s suffering than Billy’s because the
music conveys the distress of his ordeal more vividly than
Billy’s. (Does anyone find Billy a fully sympathetic character ?)
236 T HE O PERA S OF BENJAMI N B R I T T E N

For the mature sufferer— Gloriana, Vere, Nebuchadnezzar—

evil does not appear in the person of a tormentor, but exists in
circumstances, and results in the mental pain of crises of
judgement. Vere is the only one of these decision-makers to
express the actual agony of the crisis— but then he is the only
one of them to understand what is at stake : an Abraham-and-
Isaac figure. The Dream is the only opera outside the moral
premise. It enjoys quite amoral principles and standards. It
contains no crises of judgement and no physical pain. The
only distress is brought about by the inept wielding of an
arbitrary power. Probably for these reasons it is a work which
delights, but with which we do not remain involved after the
final curtain.
The other operas are designed to awake more than a
response to the music. They share a personality quite external
to the diverse subject-matter of the libretti and scores. The
hallmarks of Britten’s approach to opera are the attitude of
style and the extra-musical themes which are consonant with
the character of the series as an unfinished whole and
constitute the musical character of the composer.
Benjamin Britten’s dramatic works— full
operas, chamber operas and dramas for Church
performance— dominate the repertoire o f Now available,
contemporary English opera, though they no
longer monopolise it. Peter Grimes w ill always
rank with The Siege of Rhodes as a new begin­ Richard Strauss
ning for English opera. And unlike D ’Avenant’s
a critical commentary
work, the score o f Peter Grimes seems likely to
survive. on his life and work
Performances o f Britten’s operas are, how ­
V O L U M E II
ever, far from frequent and the average listener
cannot readily form an impression o f the scope
NORMAN DEL M A R
and development o f the series nor absorb all the
riches o f individual works simply from his In the second volume, which has been awaited
experiences in the opera house. The majority eagerly, the author is tested by the increasing
o f opera-goers— that is those who live outside complexities o f the Strauss-Hofmannsthal
London and whose limited holiday time does relationship which reached its climax in
not allow visits to Aldeburgh— have the chance Strauss’s monumental work, the symbolic
o f seeing any one opera by Britten only once or Die Frau Ohne Schatten. Norman Del Mar
twice in a lifetime. This book is designed to comments on this opera with a directness and
enable them to make the most o f these much sureness o f approach that explains the essentials
sought-after occasions, since it not only briefs but does not lose the thread o f the narrative in a
the readers on the events— on stage and in the cul-de-sac o f philosophical ambiguity.
orchestra— but also prepares him for the exper­ This volum e begins with Ariadne auf Naxos
ience o f becoming involved in the drama. and concludes with Arabella, leaving the songs
Patricia Howard distinguishes between de­ and the last period o f Strauss’s life to be con­
tails which can be perceived by a “ first tim e” sidered in a third and final volume. The three
audience and those which are only available tó books w ill provide the definitive commentary
the listener w ith an intimate knowledge o f the on Strauss’s life and works in the English lan­
score. Those who already know the operas well guage.
can relive them through this book, which has O f the first volume, the reviewers said :
nearly ioo music illustrations. The author’s “ Mr. Del Mar is not only a thorough musician,
personal approach is stimulating and at times but an enthusiast who has kept a cool head, a
provocative. scholar who has not allowed himself to sink
There is a chapter on each o f Britten’s beneath an accumulation o f detail, and a
dramatic works, including Noye’s Fludde and practical man who has got his plan and his
the Parables for Church Performance, excluding proportions right.” desmond shawe- taylor ,
the edited Dido, revised Beggars’ Opera and the Sunday Times.
early Paul Bunyan. Also there is a general survey “ I have nothing but admiration for Del M ar’s
o f Britten’s musico-dramatic art throughout achievement and can only marvel that he could
the canon. Although it is primarily intended to combine this vast amount o f scholarship and
assist the inexperienced listener and stimulate research with his commitments as a conductor
the confirmed opera-goer, Mrs. H ow ard’s book . . . the detailed studies o f the music are models
should interest all those concerned with writing, o f how to write illuminatingly and stimulat-
producing or studying opera o f our time. ingly about a composition.” martin cooper,
Patricia Howard, w ho studied w ith Egon Daily Telegraph.
W ellesz at O xford, is especially drawn to writ­ “ Brilliant and copiously analytical study . . .
ing about opera by her dual interests in litera­ w ill prove a constant fascination.” neville
ture and music. She is also the author o f Gluck cardus, Guardian.
and the Birth of Modern Opera (see back o f jacket). Med. Svo, 464 pages including 355 music examples
W ith 102 music examples plus 8 pages of photographs, 75 s.
Also available Volum e One 65s.
B A R R IE & R O C K L IF F
TH E C R E SSE T PRESS 40s.
S B N 214.66055.9
 A lso by Patricia Howard

GLUCK
AND THE BIRTH
OF MODERN
OPERA

“ A well-balanced blend o f historical insight and

inspiration. A more detailed examination o f Gluck’s
music than has hitherto been available in English
[written] in a lively and lucid style.” The Times
Literary Supplement.
“ A n excellent evaluation o f Gluck’s achievements
. . . a book essential to all musicians who want to
study the problems with which a dramatic composer
has been faced since the days o f Gluck.” egon
wellesz, Composer.
“ Admirably detailed . . . particularly good on the
recitative . . . a thoroughly serious study o f Gluck’s
music . . . o f real value to the student.” martin
cooper, Daily Telegraph.

p f x 6, viii plus 120 pages, with 40 music examples,

bibliography, index to operas and general index 30s.

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