Britten Benjamin

Benjamin Britten’s “A Ceremony of Carols” with its Many Meanings

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Image accessed via Pixabay

Introduction and Origins

As readers of this blog know by now, I’m obsessed with origins, especially the origins of creative ideas. So I’m fascinated that Lin Manuel-Miranda was inspired to write his musical Hamilton by reading the Ron Chernow biography of this fascinating figure. (35 hours in audio form, folks. I know this from experience.) Stephen Schwartz got the idea for Wicked from a conversation on a snorkeling trip in Hawaii, when someone mentioned having read the book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. He says, “As soon as I heard this I had one of those light bulb moments where something just said this is a really great idea.” And Anthony Lloyed-Weber says that he bought a copy of the original Phantom of the Opera novel by Gaston Leroux for a dollar at a used-book stall in Paris and fell in love with it.

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Britten’s Blunder but with a Bright Side–Choral Dances from Gloriana

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Benjamin Britten in his library
Britten in the mid-1960s, by Hans Wild; image accessed via Wikipedia.

I want you to imagine yourself in this situation: You’re a very popular English composer, becoming especially known for your operas. Your country has just gone through the rigors and horrors of World War II, the current king has died, and now a new queen is to be crowned. She’s young and quite attractive, and she’s been an inspiration during the war, speaking via radio to displaced children and joining an ambulance corps over the objections of her family. You’ve been asked to write an opera to be performed as part of the coronation festivities.

So what would be a good subject for said opera?

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