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
Opera Ebony (Benjamin Matthews 1991); and The Meetin' (Pamela Baskin Watson, commissioned by Opera Ebony and the Jerome Foundation, 1998). Current projects include Harriet Tubman by Leo Edwards (commissioned by Opera Ebony and the Linda Gale Sampson Charitable Trust) and the remounting of The Meetin' for touring throughout North America. Opera Ebony is the longest surviving African-American opera company in American history. Opera Ebony Opera Ebony is an African-American opera company, which have performed Mozart in Harlem to African-American Heritage concerts in Iceland. Gershwin in Moscow to Duke Ellington in the Caribbean. Benjamin Matthews, Sister M. Elise Sisson, SBS (1897–1982), and Wayne