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Archive Treasures: Britten and The Tempest
We know several stories about Britten being lured back to write for the big screen. Few such tales straddled the decades like that of his hope to work…
Archive Treasures: Britten’s wheelchair
In 1975 Benjamin Britten was a sick man: two years before he had suffered a stroke in the course of an operation to replace a failing heart valve, and…
Archive Treasures: Music manuscript for Britten’s Piano Concerto
Our archive preserves thousands of Britten’s music manuscripts from his juvenilia – his earliest notes written from the age of five – to his unfinished…
Archive Treasures: Britten and Bennett
In 1965 film director John Schlesinger approached Britten to supply a soundtrack for what would become a film classic. The composer’s reluctant decline…
Archive Treasures: Channel Air Bridge
One of the fascinations of an archive is the way that, no matter how apparently focused its content may be, other topics creep in at the edges. The…
Archive Treasures: Joan Cross’ wartime cast books
Joan Cross began her operatic career in 1923 when she joined the chorus of the Vic-Wells Opera Company, then throughout the 1930s she enjoyed success…
Archive Treasures: Decimalisation
The archive at the Red House tells the story of Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears: their lives together, their creative work and how they formed part of…
Archive Treasures: Nearly A Rabbit’s Tale
Did you ever imagine Peter Pears donning a fox’s costume for an opera, or that Britten would try his hand at set design? If not read on… Amid…
Archive Treasures: Hardy’s Time’s Laughingstocks and Other Verses
Britten owned a large collection of verse anthologies as well as volumes of specific authors in his library. Of these volumes the one with the most…
Archive Treasures: African National Congress
In the archive at the Red House, there is shelf after shelf of Benjamin Britten’s correspondence: its cataloguing was recently completed by a team of…
Archive Treasures: Nicholson’s Guide to British Waterways
Visitors entering the Red House are met by one of our volunteers, who will explain how they should safely make their way around the house and equip…
Archive Treasures: Peter Pears’ gift of Winterreise
Britten and Pears’ first public performance of Schubert’s masterpiece was memorable for various reasons, not least of which is an archive treasure, a…