Benjamin Britten the apex of his reputation: it was almost universally hailed as a masterpiece." Shostakovich told Rostropovich that he believed it to be "the greatest work of the twentieth century". In 1967 the BBC commissioned Britten to write an opera specially for television. "Owen Wingrave" was based, like "The Turn of the Screw", on a ghost story by Henry James. By the 1960s Britten found composition much slower than in his prolific youth; he told the 28-year-old composer Nicholas Maw, "Get as much done now as you can, because it gets much, much more difficult as you grow older." He did
The Fly (opera) The Fly (opera) The Fly is an opera in two acts by Canadian composer Howard Shore, with a libretto by David Henry Hwang. It was commissioned by the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, France, where it premiered on 2 July 2008, and by Edgar Baitzel, then director of the Los Angeles Opera, where the opera was first performed on 7 September 2008. The work was broadcast by Radio France's station France Musique on 2 August 2008. The opera is loosely based on David Cronenberg's 1986 film "The Fly", which was based on the short story of the same name by