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Britten: Composer, Conductor, Pianist - The Historic BBC Films

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At this writing, BEGGAR'S OPERA (1963) and OWEN WINGRAVE (1971) are not available separately, What's more, the six items would cost $170! In this collection, Britten sometimes conducts or plays the piano. Pears sings in five of the performances. Each DVD case includes a 28-page booklet in English, French, and German.

Audio choice is Original Mono or Enhanced Dolby Mono. Multi-language subtitles are offered, and I did display the English subtitles, otherwise some of the sung, unnaturally inflected English would have eluded me. The exception is WINTERREISE. The printed poems are in only German and English. The video offers no subtitles, but Pears' voice-over briefly summarizes each poem before he sings it.

All productions are in color, except black & white for BEGGAR'S OPERA and BILLY BUDD.

When the productions involve multi-sets rather than a "single-stage" layout, placement of orchestra and conductor is a problem. In tv facilities, the orchestra may be in a separate studio, with closed-circuit tv showing the conductor to the singers. The Supplement for OWEN WINGRAVE shows an intermediate conductor directing the singers while keeping an eye on the orchestra conductor. (Britten did not believe in pre-recording the audio, then having the singers lip-sync in performing for the cameras.)

BEGGAR'S OPERA, 1963, 94 min

In 1948 Britten adapted John Gay's highly amusing, rather ribald work of 1728. In its course, most of the women are called sluts, even Polly Peacham (sung with silvery sheen by Janet Baker) who has just wed the highwayman Macheath (Kenneth McKellar), and the law is on his tail. But his "former love," Lucy Lockit (Heather Harper) is five months' pregnant. When he's finally led within spitting distance of the noose, public uproar forces the author-beggar, who is one of the onstage characters, to forgo the execution. Everone joins in the jubilant finale, which unfortunately is defaced by rolling Credits.

(The modest flexible set maintains a stage-like atmosphere.)

BILLY BUDD, 1966, b&w, 158 min

From Hermann Melville's story: In 1797 Billy Budd (Peter Glossop) is pressed into service on a British warship. His likeability and "beauty" provoke the crew master John Claggart (Michael Langdon) who vows to ruin him.

When the two men stand before Captain Vere (Peter Pears) for judgment, Billy's accursed stammer frustrates the innocent youth, and with one accidental blow he kills Claggart. So Billy must hang.

From simple, nonmusical origins, Glossop is blessed with a great natural singing voice, and his role is perfect for him, though he is no "beauty." At the beginning of Act II, when he awakens on the morn of his execution, and SINGS!, we must all weep.

In black & white, the production looks like a class-A movie: the spacious deck, the crew quarters below, Captain Vere's quarters, the study where old Vere recollects at the start and end of the opera. A very large cast, even boys who bring fresh munitions during a sea battle.

(We do not see Billy actually hanged, only the other men's faces.)

PETER GRIMES, 1969, b&w, 142 min

Britten's 1945 opera, which made him. An English seafaring borough early in the 19th century: Exonerated in the death of his young apprentice from the workhouse, fisherman Peter Grimes (Peter Pears) then decides to get another. The schoolmistress Ellen Orford (Heather Harper), hoping to wed Peter, is his understanding supporter, but the other denizens, though they have their own grievous faults, are down on him. When his second apprentice falls to his death, Peter knows he will be terribly punished. And an acquaintance advises the pursued fisherman: You must take your boat out, and sink with her.

Multi-sets (Peter's "whale skeleton" living quarters are striking), large cast. Some critics felt that Pears, though apt in the role in 1945, was less so in 1969. The Four Sea Interludes remain irresistible to the ear; the video image contents itself with abstract overlays of colored moving clouds.

IDOMENEO, 1970, color, 164 min (two discs)

Mozart's first operatic masterpiece, and a revelation in dramatic power. Britten conducted from his own edition of the score.

Ilia (Heather Harper), daughter of the defeated Trojan king, is held in the palace of Cretan king Idomeneo (Peter Pears). Her extended prologue reveals her extreme emotion [she secretly loves Idamante (mezzo Anne Pashley), prince of Crete], and sketches in plot clues. Also in the palace is the forceful Elektra (Rae Woodland), after the slaughter of her despised mother in Argos, and Elektra also yearns for Idamante. When Idomeneo's ship undergoes stormy attack by Neptune, the king seeks to be spared, and vows to sacrifice to the sea god the first being he encounters in Crete: wretchedly, it is his own son Idamante. Crises abound, until Idomeneo abdicates in favor of Idamante, and Ilia destined to be queen.

The single set is stage-like, portals left and right, and a wide space between in which agitated drapes can invoke the stormy sea and a great dragon-monster can intrude.

While Brian Large oversaw the tv production, the exacting detail in the performances--every gesture and step--may be owing to prior directorial work.

A long production at 164 min, even with cuts, but time flies as you are gripped.

WINTERREISE, 1970, color, 80 min; Folksongs, 1964, b&w, 26 min; Supplement, color and b&w, 13 min

Schubert's song cycle to 24 narrative poems by Wilhelm Muller. Only Peter Pears appears on screen, with long hair and a traveler overcoat, and off-camera Britten plays the piano. Pears remains somber and constrained in movement. In the poems the youthful traveler leaves his sweetheart who has jilted him, treads life's disappointing path, passes by the ever-patient graveyard and finally, old and worn down, encounters the organ grinder.

Pears is rooted against a dark anthracitic background which is varied now and again with a bit of colored light, a sketch, crosses. This monotonous staging--sometimes in medium longshot--contributes nothing; better to view a customary recital.

In this instance, to me Pears' (odd?) vocal qualities do not seem suited to the German poetry.

The Supplements are Pears doing English folksongs to Britten's accompaniment before a small audience; and Britten and Pears at home doing three Winterreise songs, with comments (this home footage is un-restored).

OWEN WINGRAVE, 1971, color, 109 min; Supplement, 1971?, color, 15 min

In this written-for-tv opera (from a story by Henry James), Owen (Benjamin Luxon) has been reared to follow the family's tradition of a military career, but he rebels, surprising his counselor (John Shirley-Quirk) and the latter's wife (Heather Harper). At the Wingrave manor, the old grandfather (Peter Pears), relatives, and even Owen's fiancee (Janet Baker) are unyieldingly furious with him. He is disinherited! His fiancee thinks he is perhaps cowardly, and to prove his courage he asserts he will pass the night in the haunted room, haunted by two old deaths.

Then you realize: Oh dear, are we going to stick with the anti-militaristic theme, or is this going to be another Henry James ghost story!

You may find it humorous as these expectedly genteel Jamesian characters contend at operatic volume and with distorted inflection.

Multi-sets, and many grim but silly-looking ancestral portraits executed in "gloppy muds."

The "Making of..." supplement reveals the complexities of video-recording this opera at Snape Maltings, Suffolk, a site of the Aldeburgh Festival.

... unless of course you have no interest in modern opera, or the music of Benjamin Britten, or the historical development of filmed opera for TV. In that case, you can safely ignore even the finest bargain.

If you are a confirmed fan of the music of Benjamin Britten, obviously what you need to know is that the sound quality is excellent on all six DVDs. I've reviewed all of them separately, so I won't rehash my critiques. The performances of "Peter Grimes" and "The Beggar's Opera" are superb on every level; to my eyes and ears, the others are less satisfactory, though insightful critics have had high praise for this film of "Billy Budd."