Benjamin Britten Lord Harewood called it "the first genuinely successful British opera, Gilbert and Sullivan apart, since Purcell." Dismayed by the in-fighting among the company, Cross, Britten and Pears severed their ties with Sadler's Wells in December 1945, going on to found what was to become the English Opera Group. A month after the opening of "Peter Grimes", Britten and Yehudi Menuhin went to Germany to give recitals to concentration camp survivors. What they saw, at Belsen most of all, so shocked Britten that he refused to talk about it until towards the end of his life, when he told Pears that
The Corridor (opera) (1991) and "The Minotaur" (2008), premiered at the Royal Opera House in London. The world premiere of "The Corridor" on 12 June 2009 inaugurated the new Benjamin Britten Studio at Aldeburgh and was paired with the premiere of "Semper Dowland, semper dolens", Birtwistle's setting of John Dowland's "Lachrimæ, or Seaven Teares". Both works were commissioned by the Aldeburgh Festival and the Southbank Centre. The premiere production was directed by Peter Gill with Ryan Wigglesworth conducting the London Sinfonietta. Elizabeth Atherton sang the role of Woman (Eurydice); Mark Padmore was Man (Orpheus). The following month, the production and original cast toured