Eric Crozier

Television broadcast of Bees on the Boat-Deck by J.B. Priestley.

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 warship Indomitable, who falsely accuses Billy of inciting a mutiny. Philip Langridge sings Captain Vere, the honest commander who knows that Billy is innocent but finds himself unable to save him. Steuart Bedford, Britten’s close collaborator during the last years of the composer’s life, is on the podium.

Anton Chekhov’s one-act comic play throws Elena Ivanonva Popova, a land-owning widow with dimples, on her cheeks up against Grigory Stepanovitch Smirnov, a middle-aged landowner. He arrives at her house claiming her late husband owed him money and he wants the debt repaid immediately. They argue and almost have a duel over the debt before they realise that they have fallen in love with each other.

The premiere of Benjamin Britten's Billy Budd in Madrid is undoubtedly one of the highlights of the Teatro Real's bicentennial celebrations. Its magnificent libretto, based on the novel of the same name by Herman Melville, tells the story of the sailor Billy Budd: a handsome, loyal, generous, strong, naive, and kind young man whose beauty and personality drive the ship's master-at-arms mad. Unable to control the situation, the master crucifies the naive young man without mercy. This new production by the Teatro Real is being presented for the first time in Madrid, in co-production with the Opéra national de Paris, under the direction of Deborah Warner, one of the great names in stage direction today.

A version of Benjamin Britten's opera based on the Melville story. Will the virtuous young sailor Billy Budd be hanged for murder?

The story of a little boy named Sam, who is exploited by two evil chimney sweeps to clean narrow chimneys.

An opera by Benjamin Britten, on a libretto by E.M. Forster and Eric Crozier, adapted from the story by Herman Melville. Billy Budd is a young sailor aboard a British man-o'-war, persecuted by his master-at-arms, Claggart. Accused of mutiny, Budd accidently strikes Claggart dead, leaving Captain Vere with no choice but to hang him.

British educational documentary film about the principal instruments in the modern symphony orchestra, illustrated through Benjamin Britten's composition, "The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra", for which it was commissioned.