Troilus and Cressida (opera) Troilus and Cressida (opera) Troilus and Cressida is the first of the two operas by William Walton, and debuted in 1954. The libretto was by Christopher Hassall, his own first opera libretto, based on Geoffrey Chaucer's poem "Troilus and Criseyde". Walton dedicated the score to his wife, Susana. The genesis of the opera dated back to the mid-1940s, after the success of Benjamin Britten's first great operatic success, "Peter Grimes". Walton intended to counter this work with an opera of his own, and Alice Wimbourne, Walton's companion at the time, suggested the story of Troilus and Cressida as a subject.
Scottish Opera including the Barclays TMA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera for "Macbeth" and "Der Rosenkavalier" (both in 1994) and for "Die Walküre" and "Siegfried" (both in 2002), as well as the South Bank Show Award for "Best Opera" for the "Ring Cycle" (2004) and a Herald Angel Award for "The Two Widows" at the Edinburgh International Festival in 2008. Scottish Opera has also staged many successful productions abroad, including "Albert Herring" in Florence, "Egisto (opera)" in Venice, tours in Germany, Austria, Portugal, France, Switzerland, Yugoslavia and Iceland and recent years including "Peter Grimes" and "Tristan und Isolde" in Lisbon; "Macbeth"