Benjamin Britten not his own in which Britten was a somewhat dazzled accomplice". The American public liked it, but the critics did not, and it fell into neglect until interest revived near the end of the composer's life. Britten's subsequent operas range from large-scale works written for full-strength opera companies, to chamber operas for performance by small touring opera ensembles or in churches and schools. In the large-scale category are "Peter Grimes" (1945), "Billy Budd" (1951), "Gloriana" (1953), "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (1960) and "Death in Venice" (1973). Of the remaining operas, "The Rape of Lucretia" (1946), "Albert Herring" (1947), "The Little
Benjamin Britten (a 'second founder') of opera. The same can already be said today, as far as the modern British – perhaps not only British – field goes, of Britten". In addition to his own original operas, Britten, together with Imogen Holst, extensively revised Purcell's "Dido and Aeneas" (1951) and "The Fairy-Queen" (1967). These "realisations" brought Purcell, who was then neglected, to a wider public, but have themselves been neglected since the dominance of the trend to authentic performance practice. His 1948 revision of "The Beggar's Opera" amounts to a wholesale recomposition, retaining the original melodies but giving them new, highly sophisticated