- Herbert, David. The Operas of Benjamin Britten: The Complete Librettos.
New York: Columbia U.P., 1979. xxx, 382p. Reprint, New York: New Am-
sterdam Books, 1989. ISBN 0-2310-48688 (Columbia), 0-941533-71-9 (New
Amsterdam). ML 49 .B74 H5.
A useful handbook of the opera texts, with 140 plates that illustrate costumes
and sets of the premieres. Includes some essays by librettists and designers.
Bibliography of 13 items, good index of names, titles, and topics. - McDonald, Ellen. “Women in Benjamin Britten’s Operas. “ OQ4-3 (Autumn
1986): 83–101.
Though Britten is regarded as a “champion of the oppressed,” he did not rec-
ognize the oppression of women. He dealt with women as types, without “the
full range of human qualities.” The author’s position is well supported by
examples from the operas with leading female characters.
Individual Works
Albert Herring
- Mitchell, Donald. “The Serious Comedy of Albert Herring.” OQ 4-3
(Autumn 1986): 45–59.
Britten has been accused of misjudgment for including a serious elegy (on the
supposed death of Herring) at the end of his comedy. But Mitchell gives exam-
ples of operatic serious comedies, such as Così fan tutte. He finds intentional
ambiguity in such works. In dealing with this discovery—not too clearly—he
does offer a good summary of the opera’s ideas and their musical expression. - Whittall, Arnold. “The Chamber Operas.” In Cambridge Companion(#617),
95–112.
Technical analysis of The Rape of Lucretia, Albert Herring,and The Turn of
the Screw. The three operas have a common theme, the vulnerability of inno-
cence to corruption, but they take different perspectives on it.
Billy Budd
ASO158 (1994), COH 1993.
- Whittall, Arnold. “‘Twisted Relations’: Method and Meaning in Britten’s Billy
Budd.” COJ2-2 (January 1990): 145–171.
Examines the characters of Budd and Vere in the story, with a “focus on one
particularly significant musico-dramatic issue: how central aspects of the
opera’s denouement might best be understood in the light of Melville, the
opera-maker’s apparent intentions, and the composer’s actual music.” Cites
writers who find suppressed homosexual desire by Claggart for Billy (e.g.,
Auden, E. M. Forster). The libretto makes Billy and Vere more heroic than the
original story did. The musical analysis is of interest in itself, whether or not it
demonstrates that with Britten “ambivalence got the better of certainty, pes-
simism of optimism.”
Benjamin Britten 135