Movies: Benjamin Britten

As children in the loving Ekdahl family, Fanny and Alexander enjoy a happy life with their parents, who run a theater company. After their father dies unexpectedly, however, the siblings end up in a joyless home when their mother, Emilie, marries a s...

This documentary short examines the special train on which mail is sorted, dropped and collected on the run, and delivered in Scotland on the overnight run from Euston, London to Glasgow....

During World War I, British soldier Owen is mortified by the examples of cruelty that surround him in the trenches. He combats these terrifying images by maintaining hope in his love for an army nurse. But he also begins to accept his fate as another...

1935 documentary about the hard working life of Welsh coal miners....

An irreverent survey of British Music....

Ann Harding plays a lovely but somewhat naive young woman who goes on a European vacation after winning a lottery. Swept off her feet by charming Basil Rathbone, Harding finds herself married before she is fully able to grasp the situation. Slowly bu...

Gustav Von Aschenbach, a passionate composer, arrives in Venice as a result of wanderlust and there meets a young man by whose beauty he becomes obsessed....

A staging of Britten's opera filmed at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice in June 2008....

A family conflict ensues after Owen, the youngest of the proud military family Wingrave, expected to continue the family tradition and become a soldier, rejects violence and war and proclaims himself a pacifist....

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Peter Grimes lives from fishing. Raw and recluse, he finds himself at odds with the local community who accuse him of brutality towards his young apprentices and blames him for the death of one of them. A few friends stand up for him - Ellen Orford, ...

Tony Palmer directs this documentary exploring the life and work of the celebrated English composer, conductor and pianist. Britten is particularly well known for his operas, which include 'Peter Grimes' and 'Death in Venice'. Palmer discusses the li...

Britten's last opera, in two acts, presented by Teatro Real....

Tony Palmer's documentary about the staging of Britten's choral work....

An open-air staging by Aldeburgh Music of Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes, on the beach that inspired the opera. A small seaside community struggles to accept a fisherman....

John Dexter’s brilliant production of Britten’s searing opera stars Dwayne Croft in the title role of the handsome young sailor whose kindness and innocence cause his downfall. The great James Morris is Claggart, master-at-arms on the 18th-century wa...

The operatic version of the famous story about a governess who fears her two charges are possessed....

A behind-the-scenes look at the Aldeburgh Festival and the opening by The Queen of the new concert hall at Snape....

Contrasts traditional and modern village life, as changes occur with better transport and as country estates are sold off for housing....

Louisa Muller makes her Garsington directing debut and we welcome back Richard Farnes (Falstaff, 2018) to conduct with Sophie Bevan (Don Giovanni, 2012) as the Governess and British tenor Ed Lyon making his Garsington debut as Quint. A young governe...