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 Cenci the UK was by the Trinity College of Music on July 9-11, 1998. In 1951, British classical composer Havergal Brian composed an opera based on the Shelley play entitled "The Cenci", an opera in eight scenes. The opera premiered in 1997 in the UK in a performance in London by the Millennium Sinfonia conducted by James Kelleher.. In 1971, "Beatrix Cenci" premiered, an opera in two acts by Alberto Ginastera to a Spanish libretto by the composer William Shand. Other works titled "The Cenci" include an 1837 novella by Stendhal and an 1840 true crime essay by Alexandre Dumas, père,