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 Yellow Sofa The Yellow Sofa The Yellow Sofa is an opera by the British composer Julian Philips, with a libretto by writer and director, Edward Kemp, based on the novella "Alves & Co." by Eça de Queiros. The opera was premiered by Glyndebourne Festival Opera in 2009, directed by Frederick Wake-Walker and conducted by Leo McFall. This premiere production was revived at Glyndebourne in autumn 2012 and then taken on a national tour that same year, including a performance at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Both productions attracted wide critical notice, with a range of reviews in "The Times Literary Supplement",