Benjamin Britten coast close to Britten's homeland, awakened in him such longings for England that he knew he must return. He also knew that he must write an opera based on Crabbe's poem about the fisherman Peter Grimes. Before Britten left the US, Koussevitzky, always generous in encouraging new talent, offered him a $1,000 commission to write the opera. Britten and Pears returned to England in April 1942. During the long transatlantic sea crossing Britten completed the choral works "A Ceremony of Carols" and "Hymn to St Cecilia". The latter was his last large-scale collaboration with Auden. Britten had grown away from
Gormenghast (opera) Gormenghast (opera) Gormenghast is an opera in three acts composed by Irmin Schmidt to an English-language libretto by Duncan Fallowell, based on Mervyn Peake's "Gormenghast Trilogy". It premiered at the Opernhaus Wuppertal on 15 November 1998. Mervyn Peake's "Gormenghast Trilogy", on which the opera is based, is a Gothic tale recounting the rise of the evil Steerpike from a kitchen boy in Gormenghast castle to total domination of the castle and its aristocratic inhabitants. Benjamin Britten had contemplated composing an opera based on the trilogy in the 1950s, but then changed his mind. Irmin Schmidt and his librettist Duncan Fallowell,