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
Billy Budd (opera) at the 1949 Venice International Festival. This disturbed Britten, but Ghedini's opera gained little notice. Britten originally intended the title role for Geraint Evans, who prepared it but then withdrew because it lay too high for his voice. Britten chose Theodor Uppman to replace him, and Evans sang a different role, that of Mr Flint. When Britten conducted the opera's premiere, in its original form of four acts, it received 17 curtain calls. Uppman was acclaimed as a new star. "Billy Budd" received its United States première in 1952 in performances by Indiana University Opera Company. In 1960 Britten revised