I don't think I'm converted, either, though I do feel I understand it slightly better than I did. At least the programme did address the fact that it was the least popular and most criticised Britten opera. I've never thought the plot was dramatic enough for opera - it all seems a bit contrived. Musically it doesn't do a lot for me, and it always seems to me that the message (pacifism and the reaction of others to it) is much more important than the medium, whereas usually Britten manages both. It might just as well be a play, really. Poor Janet Baker - a part specially written for her, and she hated it.

Steuart Bedford (here I am remembering trivia again) wrote a lovely, affectionate essay in the tribute to Pears on his 75th birthday, called "The Struggle with the Word" ( a quotation from Death in Venice). It was about not only his difficulty in remembering so many words, but also his ability to do appropriate instant substitutions.

I'm immensely looking forward to the 'Death in Venice' programme, if it was only to hear John Shirley-Quirk speak.  I have admired him since the first time I heard his voice: I simply melt whenever I hear it.  It's the most beautiful voice I have ever heard.  His baritone has no harsh grain, I feel, it's so soft and round, so very elastical and flexible.  And then his range: my jaw literally drops every time I hear that moment in the Boat scene of DiV, when he sings



 
I guess even a lot of tenors would envy his mastery here.  I would love to upload this bit on here, before the programme on Sunday, if I ever find out how to do that.
I have a recording of the Fauré Requiem, with the Orchestra and Chorus of La Monnaie, dir. Sylvain Cambreling, with Shirley-Quirk as the baritone soloist: those pieces are absolutely made for him!  Those long legato phrases, that continuous flow of a rich, multifaceted sound...    Forgive me for waxing lyrical, I can't help myself.  I would love to hear more of him in non-Britten repertoire: I see he has recorded Schwanengesang.  Aren't there also some live recordings from the Aldebrugh Festival, where he features as a soloist?  I vaguely remember hearing him singing American songs on Radio 3 - would love to hear that again.

Apparently nowadays he lives in the United States and teaches voice in the Peabody Institute of Music in Baltimore.  This is what he lookes like nowadays:


What is he doing there?  He should be in Europe, being celebrated and revered, as one of the greatest singers of the second half of the 20th century...  I mean, he's virtually perfect: beautiful voice, astonishing technique, great acting skills (from what I can tell from recordings) - why such a modest reputation now?  Anyway, just to say, I'm very glad Radio 3 has invited him - I will listen attentively.


Thank you Mary and smittims for your listening advice.  I'm planning to buy the complete 'Britten conducts Britten'-opera set by Decca, but that might take some time: it's hard for me to save money  .

I have a question regarding 'A Midsummer's Night Dream'.  I read that W.H. Auden, when he saw the premiere, thought of it as 'pure Kensington'.  I have always wondered: what does that mean exactly?

Very nice to read and hear from people so knowledgeable about Britten.

J S-Q was also among the cast for the Meistersinger at last year's Edinburgh Festival; he became a mainstay of the English Opera Group, creating roles in every Britten opera for adult voices from Curlew River onwards; his stage performances conveyed dignity and great integrity, making him for example an absolutely perfect Collatinus in Lucretia. Apart from the EOG visits to Sadler's Wells, he was not much seen on the London stage, although he created the role of Lev in Tippett's Ice Break at Covent Garden, and Scottish Opera audiences saw him as Golaud in Pelléas et Mélisande, incidentally the work in which he had made his operatic debut at Glyndebourne, though in that case as the Doctor.

Many of us first came to know him from his song recital disc on Saga, issued at around the same time in the sixties as the two by Janet Baker: in many ways their careers were parallel, and it's no surprise that Britten found their particular talents for unforced, intelligent interpretation of words and music not only sympathetic to his work but an inspiration in his later years.

Look more closely, Mary, the white streak is still quite evidently a different colour to the grey....

I always thought of it as his 'Shirley-Quirk'.

A lovely expressive Bach singer too to go slightly off topic.

Absolutely.  His recording of Ich habe genug is in my view incomparable - one of those discs I couldn't live without

I don't think it means anything much - just Auden trying to be clever as he so often did. As you probably know, he was close to Britten in the 1930s, and dedicated several poems to him. He rather resented the Britten-Pears relationship, and became unnecessarily critical. If "pure Kensington" means anything, I should imagine it's implying that Britten had become just too English and upper middle class, whereas he, Auden, had stayed in America and presumably regarded himself as more international. Perhaps he thought MSND was a symptom of Britten's Englishness, with its fairies and counter-tenor and jokes about the "lower classes" (though I'd have thought all except the counter-tenor were actually Shakespeare's Englishness).

I was just a bit disappointed in The Death in Venice programme - perhaps my expectations were too high. It seemed a straightforward description of the plot with illustrations (and what illustrations!) rather than a programme full of insights, and there is just so much to say about D in V. I was quite shocked that JSQ hadn't listened to the recording, though he redeemed himself by saying he always stood in the wings to listen to Pears singing the Phaedrus aria. I love the thought of Fred Ashton teaching him (JSQ) how to be vulgar as the Leader of the Players, though!