ST. LOUIS, June 19 – In more than 50 years on the British throne Queen Elizabeth II has shown scant interest in opera. So it is paradoxical that one of the major events of her coronation ceremonies was the 1953 premiere by the Royal Opera at Covent Garden of Benjamin Britten’s “Gloriana,” an elaborate three-act work about the first Queen Elizabeth, with a libretto by William Plomer based on Lytton Strachey’s book “Elizabeth and Essex.”
Christine Brewer
Long Live a Beleaguered Tribute to Britannia
By ANTHONY TOMMASINI [NY Times, 20 June 05]
ST. LOUIS, June 19 - In more than 50 years on the British throne Queen Elizabeth II has shown scant interest in opera. So it is paradoxical that one of the major events of her coronation ceremonies was the 1953 premiere by the Royal Opera at Covent Garden of Benjamin Britten's "Gloriana," an elaborate three-act work about the first Queen Elizabeth, with a libretto by William Plomer based on Lytton Strachey's book "Elizabeth and Essex."