Benjamin Britten based on a theme from Britten's Piano Concerto. Works commemorating Britten include "Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten" an orchestral piece written in 1977 by Arvo Pärt, and Sally Beamish's "Variations on a Theme of Benjamin Britten", based on the second Sea Interlude from "Peter Grimes"; she composed the work to mark Britten's centenary. Alan Bennett depicts Britten in a 2009 play "The Habit of Art", set while Britten is composing "Death in Venice" and centred on a fictional meeting between Britten and Auden. Britten was played in the premiere production by Alex Jennings. Tony Palmer made three documentary films about
Benjamin Britten not complete the score of the new opera until August 1970. "Owen Wingrave" was first broadcast in Britain in May 1971, when it was also televised in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the US and Yugoslavia. In September 1970 Britten asked Myfanwy Piper, who had adapted the two Henry James stories for him, to turn another prose story into a libretto. This was Thomas Mann's novella "Death in Venice", a subject he had been considering for some time. At an early stage in composition Britten was told by his doctors that a heart operation