Thomas Allen was superb too. It's a really difficult part to bring off, and having to look good as well is rather too much for some. I wish I'd seen Theodore Uppman, the first one - when Britten met him he apparently said, "Well, you certainly look like Billy". The photos I found on Google are taken too late in life to show him at his best, but the golden curls are still there.

Here are some photos of the young Theodor Uppman as Billy Budd:

Actually Keenlyside's comments started off rather low-key, but became more interesting and nuanced as the programme progressed - he did actually make the point that Captain Vere is - not exactly the most interesting part, but certainly a much more complex character than either Billy or Claggart.
This is unfortunately the only one of the Performing Britten programmes I've been able to hear....wish I could have hear Philip Langridge in discussion!

Yes, Mary, It is deeply frustrating with your computer. Sometimes if my computer down I miss talking to people and listening to music on the net very much. May be you can go to the internet caffees sometimes, or it doesnot suit?

A real pleasure to hear Dame Josephine Barstow discussing her performance as "Gloriana", albeit a bit disturbing to realise that it is almost 15 years since I saw the production, twice, at Leeds, Grand Theatre, in 1992.

I have a framed study of the Dame in full regalia above my TV set, complemented by a rectangular print of the Wigmore Hall, to offset longueurs during TV programmes.

The imagery of the Opera North production is still quite vivid and, as discussed, the splendour of the  opening procession, downstage, still contrasts with the aged and rather broken figure at the Queen's final exit.  As always, Britten's score is more revealing at every hearing and how depressing it must have been to experience the indifferent response of an Establishment audience at Covent Garden, in June 1953.

How fascinating to hear the aged Basil Coleman, the producer of the first performances of Turn of the Screw, on today's programme. I particularly enjoyed his scathing comments on some recent productions. Good to hear the original recording for once as well - how that cast outclasses all its successors, however well the more recent ones may sing. Best of all - the archive recording of Pears singing Pérotin, sounding very good for 65 - it was his (much earlier, obviously) singing of this music that inspired Quint's seductive calls to Miles. I've never heard that recording before, and neither had Coleman. More of this sort of thing, please!

Yes, the programme on 'TheTurn of the Screw'  was excellent,Radio3 at its best and the sort of thing we used to get on the Third.


I've always been fascinated by one aspect of the score which seems to go against the conventional view of the story and the drama.That is that the music for the governess depicts her as a rather 'tight-arsed' virgin, (so 'English'.as Lindsay Anderson would say)  whereas the music for Quint is full of the seductive mystery of the wild world of discovery,particularly of sexuality. 

I think James is nowadays accepted as a latent gay who decided to stay celibate as much  from fear as from artistic dedication,and I think Britten must have sympathised with him.  To be gay in middle-class 1950s London was hard,but in 1860s Middle Class New England it must have been impossible. .

I enjoyed the programme too. 

It was nice to hear snippets from the Britten recording, as I had never heard the original version before.  The singing sounded softer, more simple and more free than what one is used to nowadays.  I am especially determined now to get myself the original recording and give the opera another try.  'The Turn of the Screw' is one of the few Britten operas that has always failed to interest me, which I find extremely odd, given my love for 'Grimes', 'Billy Budd' and 'Death in Venice', and the wide popular and critical acclaim the opera has.  I'm guessing the fault is in me.  It's not that I didn't try: I listened to the Colin Davis recording with Helen Donath as The Governess, I saw the film dvd with Lisa Milne, I even saw it live once, with the gorgeous Mireille Delunsch as a Governess with a slight French accent...   But it never riveted me the way the others did.  I'm thinking maybe the original recording will open my eyes/ears to some as yet undiscovered beauty in the score    Or else not, can't like everything...  (Then again, with all Britten operas I started out hating them, kept on listening, and ended up loving them.  Very strange...)

The Pears recording of Pélotin reminded me of the fact that Pears' voice is often so strange-sounding that it suggests something totally mysterious, out of this world (sound-wise that is)...  It reminded me too how Britten often uses this quality of utter strangeness in his voice to make up his own, very special sound-world...  It was this special and very individual sound-world that attracted me to Britten's music first, I think...  I'm thinking of the long melismatic phrases he often wrote for Pears, i.e. that last long utterance of 'Peter Grimes' in the Peter Grimes Mad Scene, or the War Requiem's 'Dona nobis pacem', 'Promène toi la nuit' from the Antique in 'Les Illuminations', the word 'lulling' from the Sonnet in the Serenade...  And more in general I keep finding this sound-world in several beautiful and long, chromatic (I think) phrases that I think are typical for Britten: the litanies of the Madwoman in Curlew River, 'What harbour shelters peace', 'Turn the skies back and begin again', 'My only hope is held by you', 'It seemed that out of battle I escaped', 'Strange friend, here is no cause to mourn', 'The shades keep down which well might roam her hall', 'Low lying clouds, unending grey', 'How I love the sound of the long low waves...', 'So the moments pass, and as they dwindle...', and so on...
Does this make any sense?

Back to the programme: I thought Basil Coleman was a very charming man.  I liked the way he so sincerely agreed with Mr Evans: 'Quite so. Fascinating. How interesting.' 
Looking forward to 'A Midsummer's Night Dream', the only Britten opera I have NEVER heard before.  Hoping for a pleasant surprise...

I think you have captured the essence of a lot Britten's music here, in my opinion.   This is the reason, I think, why Britten's music is often disliked, because the erotic, passionate quality is, as you say, submerged beneath a surface of stiff and spare sounding music.

Greetings