Analysis Of Benjamin Britten's Opera

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In order to understand a composer’s popularity one not only needs to analyse the circumstances and the composer’s works, but those pieces that provided the basis of the operas as well. Dent’s (1926) idea is that the melody of the music should follow the rhythm and pace of spoken English language. He also has a language requirement: an opera cannot become genuinely English if it is composed to foreign language. He emphasises that Purcell’s work needs to be studied; his works are in connection with the proper musical adaptation, since in Dent’s view Purcell was a master in following the rhythm of the language with the music. He even adds that the original story does not need to be written by an English author. In this chapter I am examining …show more content…

However, only the half of his sources are from English literature, the other half comes from American and German writers.
The source of Britten’s first opera, Peter Grimes, was The Borough, a narrative poem, by George Crabbe (White, 1983a). Crabbe was not only English, but came from the same part of Great Britain as Britten, which was Suffolk (White, 1983a). This close homeland was especially important for Britten; therefore not only the author’s Englishness suggested the choice, but the roots of Crabbe and the story’s location as well.
The Rape of Lucretia and Albert Herring seem to be exceptions: both stories come from French tales (Whittall, 1999). However, there is a significant difference between the two operas; the setting of The Rape was not converted to England, Albert Herring’s location was changed to England. There is one fact that could link The Rape to Great Britain. This fact is that Shakespeare wrote a poem on this theme; although, none of my sources support this idea. However, Britten showed an interest for Shakespeare’s works, and he composed his second grand opera of the story of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Cooke, …show more content…

It seems that it was more significant for him to choose works with original English text than works by English authors. Although, most of the instances he changed the plot in a way that it could take place in Great Britain. A reason for his language preference could be the fact that by choosing English texts he could use parts and pieces from the original text in the libretto, as he did in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Milner, 1992). In this manner the opera libretto can become even more

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