Performance History and Reception
The opera was premiered on 20 June 1947 at Glyndebourne, conducted by the composer. According to one writer, John Christie, the owner and founder of Glyndebourne "disliked it intensely and is said to have greeted members of the first night audience with the words: 'This isn't our kind of thing, you know'." Just 38 years later Glyndebourne's 1985 production was "one of the most successful the opera has had".
The opera was given its US premiere on 8 August 1949 as part of the Tanglewood Music Festival. In 1949, Britten's English Opera Group toured with both Rape of Lucretia and Albert Herring, giving ten performances between 12–23 September in Copenhagen and Oslo: an almost complete recording of one of their Copenhagen performances has been commercially released.
Sviatoslav Richter called it "the greatest comic opera of the century", and in 1983 staged Albert Herring as part of the December Nights Festival at Moscow's Pushkin Museum.
The opera was performed at Buenos Aires's Teatro Colón in 1972. In 2008-2010, over 55 performances were given by companies such as those at Glyndebourne and the Portland Opera in Oregon (2008 season); the Opéra-Comique in Paris and the Opéra de Normandie in Rouen (2009); and, for 2010, at the Landestheater in Linz, the Finnish National Opera in Helsinki and the Santa Fe Opera.The Santa Fe production was given by the Los Angeles Opera in 2011.
Read more about this topic: Albert Herring
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