Monday July 29 2019
July’s Box of Delights is themed around the summer holidays! In the archive, we have letters and postcards from Britten and Pears’ travels. In this month’s Box of Delights, we have included some of our favourite holiday-inspired material. First edition of Holiday Diary (1935) Originally titled Holiday Tales when published by Boosey and Hawkes in […]
Wednesday July 24 2019
In June the Archive was delighted to receive the papers of contralto Norma Procter (1928-2017). This adds yet another collection to those already held of singers, librettists and producers who worked with Britten and Pears; illustrating that our archive is not just about Britten and Pears but about a network of collaborating creators and performers. […]
Monday July 22 2019
‘I’m now reading Emma to sooth [sic] myself,’ Britten confided to Pears in June 1944, emphasising that Jane Austen’s trademark humour and mastery of narrative offered some relief, albeit temporary, from the horrors of war. In 1946 Britten and Pears turned to Austen as potential source material for a new opera, the unrealised Letters to […]
Friday July 12 2019
The Britten–Pears Foundation is looking to appoint an Archive Trainee with a passion for archives and collections to support the front line work of the current archive and library staff. The post will include overseeing our Reading Room and dealing with enquiries from researchers, as well as project work in preservation, digitisation and description of […]
Tuesday July 9 2019
The Britten-Pears Foundation has loaned 17 photographs from its collections to the Turner Contemporary gallery in Margate for their Seaside: Photographed exhibition. This exhibition examines the relationship between photographers, photography and the British seaside from the 1850s to the present day and includes images of crashing waves, day trippers, holiday makers, seaside communities and hotels. […]
Friday June 21 2019
This month’s featured acquisition relates to the English Opera Group (later the English Music Theatre Company) and recently recorded oral history interviews with three former members; stage manager John Richardson, singer Michael Bauer, and stage and general manager David Patmore. In Spring this year a trainee archivist at University College London undertook an oral history […]
Friday May 31 2019
Visitors to the Britten-Pears Foundation Archive can view, in the foyer display case, an acquisition selected from those received during April. The display centres around the first performances of Britten’s Noye’s Fludde during the 1958 Aldeburgh Festival. In April the Archive was pleased to receive for its collections a copy of the 1958 Festival programme […]
Monday May 27 2019
This month’s box of delights is themed around Britten’s King of the May, Albert Herring. The opera Albert Herring was written in 1947, the year Britten moved from Snape to Aldeburgh. It often pays tribute to the Suffolk he knows as it mentions a number of familiar place names. The story takes place on May […]
Tuesday May 21 2019
The Britten-Pears Foundation Archive is not the first place that comes to mind when looking for stories of remarkable women, but in fact it holds papers from many women who were part of Britten and Pears’ circle of friends, which included some of the most notable musicians, artists and writers of their time. One of […]
Friday May 17 2019
After years of work undertaken by staff and volunteers, the cataloguing of Britten’s correspondence is finally complete. This is an amazing accomplishment that we are delighted to share with you. This project was created to tell us who Britten corresponded with, how many letters were sent, and what the date range was. In total, we […]
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17 August 2019