I have lately become obsessed with the operas of Benjamin Britten.  It's weird how I migrate from composer to composer and find something new that interests me.  I never lose love or respect for the music I'm already familar with, but gaining a new body of works to appreciate adds something to my life.  It makes it better in a unique way that would've been impossible otherwise.  Imagine if I'd gone my whole life without become acquainted with them?  It's a reason to continuously seek out as much new music as possible.

How I "discovered" Britten is a bit tangled.  Of course I'd heard of him and knew a few of his works.  (His Violin Concerto is excellent.)  But what caught my attention was the mutual respect between him and Shostakovich, who remains my favorite composer.  They struck up a friendship in the later years of both their lives, and one that was a bit odd given that it was the height of the Cold War and travel between the USSR and England was not always easy.  Anyway, on one visit, Britten gave Shostakovich an uncompleted score of "Death in Venice" to look over, and Shostakovich loved it.  That was enough for me to try to get a hold of a recording. 

As it turns out, Britten made a shitload of recordings of him conducting his own pieces -- although not actually "Death in Venice" since he was very ill when it was finally produced.  I have found four box sets, two of his operas and two of his orchestral and church works; here's an example.  They're relatively cheap for the amount of material you get, so I got all four, and I've been blown away.

I'm not naturally an opera fan, but having the opera in English helps SO much.  You still can't understand a lot of what they are saying, but it draws you into the story more and you can pick up more and more words as time goes on.  His operas are packed with creative instrumental writing not to mention excellent vocal settings of the text.  For example, A Midsummernight's Dream contains nothing but Shakespeare's original text (with the exception of one line, added to fill in background for a lot of the original Act I of the play, which was cut), but the musical settings are so inventive.  Oberon is played by a countertenor, which is this creepy male voice in the alto/lower soprano range, and has a couple haunting themes accompanied by the celesta.  Puck's role is entirely spoken, but in rhythmic cadences and always with trumpet/tom-tom interspersed throughout.  The lovers and the woodsmen each have a distinctive style of music that goes with their scenes and fits perfectly.

I could go on.  I will say that "Billy Budd" and "Owen Wingrave" are my least favorite operas of the set -- atlhough somtimes I warm up to things after a while, so I may yet change my mind.  But "Turn of the Screw" is haunting, with a twelve-tone theme that keeps come back in variation after variation; "Glorianna," although a critical failure, is a fabulous story depicting the relationship between Queen Elizabeth I and the Earl of Essex and is one of my favorites.  And of course "Peter Grimes," which is, luckily, playing in San Diego this year.

Not only was Britten friends with Shostakvoich, but also Rostroprovich, which prompted him to write a set of three excellent Solo Suites for Cello, as well as a Sonata for Cello.  (There is also a "Cello Symphony," although I am not particularly fond of it.)  I was interested to learn recently that Rostroprovich was married to Galina Vishnevskaya, who was the intended soprano for the first performance of Britten's "War Requiem," and who has an unbelievaeably powerful voice.  (She didn't end up making the premiere because the USSR wouldn't let her out of the country for the performance, but she recorded it later in a performace included on the box sets mentioned earlier.)  I was also surprised to learn that she is the singer who plays the title role of the recording of Shostavkovich's "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District" that I have.  Small world.

The box sets also contain some recordings of Britten rehearsing the orchestra perform the taping of the "War Requiem."  He didn't know the tape player was still running, so it captures him as he naturally would be, and it's charming to hear him interact with the orchestra and chorus.  He's a conductor you'd want to play for.

The experience definitely has me on the lookout for other 20th century composers of operas in English.  John Adams's Nixon in China is pretty damn good too.