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 Stronger (opera) to be a work that could be performed as a pair with his opera "The Tenor" (1952). However, years later he determined that it would fit better as part of a trilogy with two other operas he composed: "Purgatory" (1958) and "Will You Marry Me?" (1989). "The Stronger" and Weisgall's "The Golden Peacock" were performed at the occasion of the latter work's premiere by the Opera Ensemble of New York with Cecelia Wasson as Estelle. The Stronger (opera) The Stronger is an opera in one act by composer Hugo Weisgall. The English language libretto by Richard Henry Hart is based