The most visible person of the countertenor revival in the twentieth century was Alfred Deller, an English singer and champion of authentic early music performance. Deller initially identified as an "alto", but his collaborator Michael Tippett recommended the archaic term "countertenor" to describe his voice. In the 1950s and 60s, his group, the Deller Consort, was important in increasing audiences' awareness (and appreciation) of Renaissance and Baroque music. Deller was the first modern countertenor to achieve fame and has had many prominent successors. Benjamin Britten wrote the leading role of Oberon in his setting of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (1960) especially for Deller. The countertenor role of Apollo in Britten's "Death in Venice" (1973) was created by James Bowman, the best-known amongst the next generation of English countertenors. Russell Oberlin was Deller's American counterpart and another early music pioneer. Oberlin's success was entirely unprecedented in a country that did not have much experience of performance of works prior to Bach, and it paved the way for the great success of countertenors following him. Oberlin, however, harked back to the earlier tradition of countertenors using only their modal voices.