Gay wrestling
La Cieca should know by now that any think piece that kicks off with the locution “I have from time to time wrestled with this conundrum” is just going to piss her off and she should just close the tab. But she didn’t, and this is what she found a little lower down (in more than one sense of the word):
I have always been rather disgusted by Benjamin Britten’s distinctly unhealthy interest in young boys. There is no proof he ever engaged in sexual activity with any of them: but his behaviour would today come under the heading of “grooming” and he would have been put on the sex offenders’ register. Much of Britten’s music I find magnificent; he is possibly the only true genius among our 20th-century composers. Yet the homoeroticism of some of his later works, or rather the paedophilia, I find repulsive
That this same Simon Heffer manages to drag in the tiredest of all Wagner canard (the Ring is “laden with half-hidden hints of anti-Semitism”) doesn’t surprise me in the least: those who triumphantly spout one bit of received wisdom are likely to believe just about anything they’re read a hundred times before.
But let La Cieca stay within her bailiwick here and simply remind the smarmy Mr. Heffer that “homoeroticism” and “paedophilia” are two distinctly different things, the confusion of which has led to much hatred and discrimination against gay people. If he finds homoeroticism repulsive, at least he should be be man enough to say it straighforwardly, not with the weasel words he chose.
dorion:
Do you know what standard repertoire means? Operabase is a wonderful research database, but 4 performances of Rossini’s Zelmira hardly make that opera a standard repertory opera.
Britten has 3 operas in the standard international repertoire. These operas receive a fair number of performances in varied venues around the world.
Bellini has also 3 operas in the standard repertoire and it seems that Capuletti if getting a foothold, as opposed to being something that is revived every 10-15 years and then put back on the shelf. That will make it 4 operas in the standard rep and thus 1 more than Britten and I think quite a good reason to say he bests Britten in the number of operas in the international repertoire.
ellerveira and someone at #24 did discuss the quality of Britten’s music, not the specific contents of the standard rep. It this point that I was addressing.
Lindoro Almaviva you don’t have either numbers or facts on your side. You wrote that Britten matches Rossini & Donizetti in the standard rep and that Bellini “bests” Britten. That’s ridiculous.
You can’t put Capuletti in the standard rep or even Norma if you’re going to include Lucia or Barbiere on the same list. Then there are the more popular operas than the ones by Bellini, Fille du Regiment, L’elisir, Cenerentola and Don Pasquale. Let’s not even mention revivals of Lucrezia Borgia or the Three Queens. Britten doesn’t compete with Rossini & Donizetti, but he does seem to be more revived than Bellini.
Last word: statutory rape is repressed puritan crap. Americans have their “justice” priorities all screwed up, but that’s not a surprise is it?
45 & others.
‘Midsummer’ has a heavy paedo theme – with Oberon after that little Indian boy. DiV! Also in ‘Turn of the screw’ with the children being (not sexually) terrorised etc. The death of the boy – and the nature of the relationship that Grimes has had with other boys who disappear/die. There is certainly a heavy light being thrown on children being hurt in one form or the other.
I have sung some of his songs and started to work on a role and gave up after Act 1. I am no pris, but I find this kind of operatic themes undesirable.
Also, I’m no Britten expert so please feel free to correct me. I spoke to someone about this who knew them well enough to visit with them regularly, and he thought/knew that all was not right in with Britten and the little boys. Also apparently his fondness of little boys really annoyed Peers? IF he were a pedarast or had tendencies I do not know this for a fact as I never knew him.
The only thing I can say with real confidence is that I find his music really dreary. This is like my opinion and I say this as someone who is passionate equally about Mozart, Wagner, A Scarlatti, Bellini, Strauss, Puccini, Monteverdi, Vivaldi, Donizetti, Handel. As far as Britten goes, the loss is clearly mine. Although I do think I’m not missing much.
Marquise: The Indian boy is in the Shakespeare’s play, and I don’t recall that Britten laid any special emphasis on that text when he set it.
I spoke to someone about this who knew them well enough to visit with them regularly, and he thought/knew that all was not right in with Britten and the little boys.
Well, repeating second hand gossip is the best way to settle the matter, isn’t it?
I’m interested that I was the one called out for being repetitive here. Q.v., was actually quite interested in hearing one of you learned gentlemen’s assessment of Britten’s ensemble writing, say, his instrumentation, his individuality as a composer, all of which I did mention
I can take a hint, though, and will trouble you no further … not enough time really anyway if one works for a living, lives miles from NYC and simply happens to cherish this art form … 
I’m very moderate in all aspects of my views on Britten. But I’m surprised that there is debate here concerning his extraordinary interest in young boys. Just reaching up on a shelf and taking down Humphrey Carpenter’s bio, I readily find:
p. 344. Britten’s friendship with David Spenser lasted until 1949, when David was fifteen and beginning to shave. “I was aware,” David says, “that whatever there had been was no longer there.”
Then it goes on to quote Britten’s rather lovesick-sounding descriptions of some of the boys he cast in operas, to cite the gossip about his perceived lack of discretion with them in the English Opera Group, and to discuss his close interest in the sons of Steuart Bedford and in other boys.
If Britten wasn’t up to something he was at least ill-judged, e.g., when filling adolescent boys up on martinis.
While some of the men who were befriended as boys by Britten declare themselves unaware of any improper attentions from the composer, some are unsure or don’t recall, and some say otherwise. Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy — who is now a gay man — says that he feels Britten’s “heart and affections” were with Pears but his passion was directed elsewhere. He says that Pears if anything seemed to encourage Ben’s interest in boys, though others involved in friendships with Britten as boys say that he treated them very differently when Pears was there and when he wasn’t.
I have just now become weary of this subject, but there’s plenty more in this bio, which I believe has been quite respected in its treatment of its subject.
#58: It’s not consensual if you have to drug someone first.
Noel and others- regarding Roman Polanski thing- there is another side to the story that is quite different to that portrayed in much of the media. It has everything to do with a certain Judge who saw the situation as an opportunity for self grandisment – and tried to manipulate the events that led to Polanski fleeing. Little wonder he did- if the circumstances I heard are true- I would have run too!
Ruxton-I am aware of the other side to the story, and if it’s true then I can understand why he ran. But I was speaking about rape in general; and if you drug someone it isn’t consensual because they cant say no.