Eric Crozier
Eric Crozier
Early life and career
Crozier was born in
Association with Britten
The association with Benjamin Britten began when Crozier directed his first opera, Peter Grimes, which had its world premiere at Sadler's Wells on 7 June 1945.[5] Although this was both a critical and a commercial success[6] there were many difficulties over its staging, including objections both to the music and to Britten's pacifism. Crozier fiercely defended the opera, and after the premiere he resigned from the company due to the lukewarm support he had received from the management.[1]
Instead, Crozier founded the
Crozier and Britten eventually fell out permanently, and in Imogen Holst's 1966 biography of Britten he is not mentioned at all.[7] This, claims Jim Coyle, "not only calls into question Holst's objectivity; it serves to illustrate Britten's implacable lack of forgiveness on occasions".[8] Something very similar happened to another Britten librettist, Ronald Duncan.[9]
Other work
Crozier wrote the libretto for Ruth, a 1956 sacred opera by Lennox Berkeley, after the Old Testament Book of Ruth.[10] He also worked closely with Arthur Bliss, contributing the words for his Cradle Song for a Newborn Child (1964)[11] as well as helping him with the proofs and advising on the content of his biography As I Remember (1970).[12] Crozier translated many opera librettos into English, including The Bartered Bride, La Traviata, Otello and Falstaff (with Joan Cross), and Idomeneo, Salome and Die Frau ohne Schatten.[2]
Personal life
Crozier was married twice: first (in 1936 to stage designer and actress Biddy Crozier (born Ada Margaret Johns, 1915-2004) with whom he had two daughters, and then to the mezzo soprano Nancy Evans in 1949. (Evans' first husband was the record producer
References
- ^ a b c Calder, John. Obituary, The Independent, 23 October, 2011
- ^ a b Biography, Royal Opera House
- ^ Biography, IMDb
- ^ Nedbalm, Martin. 'Reinterpreting The Bartered Bride' in Journal of Musicological Research, 34:4 (2015) pp. 275-298
- ^ Banks, Paul (ed.): The Making of Peter Grimes: Essays and Studies (1997)
- ^ See, for example, "Sadler's Wells Opera – Peter Grimes", The Times (London), 8 June 1945, p. 6, and Glock, William. "Music", The Observer, 10 June 1945, p. 2
- ^ Humphrey Carpenter. Benjamin Britten: A biography (1992) pp. 468-9
- ^ Jim Coyle. 'A Reappraisal of the Relationship Between Benjamin Britten and Walter Greatorex' in Current Musicology (2019), p.44
- ^ Ronald Duncan. Working with Britten: A Personal Memoir (1981)
- ^ Griffel, Margaret Ross. Operas in English: A Dictionary (2012), p.427
- ^ Sugden, John. Bliss (1997), p. 27
- ^ Cambridge University Press. Letters to and from Arthur Bliss written between 1966 and the end of 1971
- ^ 'Evans, Nancy', obituary in The Guardian, 21 August, 2000
- ^ "Britten-Pears Foundation - Home". brittenpears.org. Retrieved 30 July 2015.
External links
- An interview with Eric Crozier recorded in 1992 - a British Library sound recording