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List of News Articles

  1. How to watch ETO's new broadcast series online

    23 December 2020

    Summary: Watch our Britten, Shostakovich, and Tippett productions online now. To enjoy our broadcasts on Marquee TV for free you’ll first need to set up an account

  2. Notes on The Heart's Assurance

    23 December 2020

    Summary: The Heart’s Assurance, a Song Cycle on Poems by Sidney Keyes and Alun Lewis. By Michael Tippet Sidney Keyes and Alun Lewis, both young poets served as sol

  3. Background on Britten’s ‘The Poet’s Echo’, op 76 (1965)

    23 December 2020

    Summary: This atmospheric song cycle was composed at a composer’s retreat in Armenia, only a few months after The Songs and Proverbs of William Blake, and again for

  4. Director’s Note: Shostakovich Romances on British Poetry

    23 December 2020

    Summary: Dmitri Shostakovich composed the Six Romances on British Poets in 1942–3. It was, of course, a time on inconceivable suffering and silence in Russia. Those

  5. Making material from a sound world

    23 December 2020

    Summary: Notes by Bernadette Iglich on her interpretation and performance based on The Holy Sonnets of John Donne, song cycle by Benjamin Britten. In writing the f

  6. Notes on A Charm of Lullabies

    23 December 2020

    Summary: Britten’s 1947 song cycle written for contralto Nancy Evans, A Charm of Lullabies, has long been a recital hall favourite. I expect that is because, in the

  7. Marina Tsvetaeva: A Note from James Conway

    23 December 2020

    Summary: Almost anything you say about Marina Tsvetaeva will be corrected by someone else pretty quickly. She contained many contradictions, certainly. As far as I

  8. ETO to bring Shostakovich, Britten and Tippett productions to Marquee TV on New Year’s Day

    17 December 2020

    Summary: We are pleased to announce that our four films, on Marquee TV this January, will each be free* to watch for seven days from their first broadcast. Click he

  9. Poulenc: Tel jour, telle nuit

    4 December 2020

    Summary: Poulenc’s remarkable song cycle Tel jour telle nuit emerged triumphantly from the ashes of an abandoned work. In December 1936, Poulenc had been working on

  10. Ideas on atonal music

    2 December 2020

    Summary: The compositional world of the twentieth century can be defined as an exploration of post-tonal techniques. The assault on tonality (when music has a centr

  11. Preparing to stage A Poet’s Echo (Britten/ Pushkin)

    1 December 2020

    Summary: Until a few years ago I knew little of this song cycle. I guess it was when I was preparing to direct Tchaikovsky’s opera Eugene Onegin that I set out to r

  12. Thoughts on Poulenc

    18 November 2020

    Summary: I’ve loved Poulenc’s music since my student days, when Graham Johnson and I performed “La courte paille” in a recital at the Royal Academy of Music. We wen