David Matthews’ chamber reduction of Britten’s penultimate opera Owen Wingrave (1971) is in rep at the Royal Northern College of Music from 30 March – 5 April 2025, in a new production directed by Orpha Phelan. Two casts are made up from students at the College, with performances conducted by Rory Macdonald – who premiered the orchestration in 2007 – and Ben Voce (5 April).
The opera, cast in two acts, reflects Britten’s deeply felt pacifist impulses and is an austere and outspoken essay against militarism, formulated with lyrical eloquence in the protagonist’s Act two monologue. With a libretto by Myfanwy Piper adapted from Henry James’ ghost story, it shows the titular baritone refuse the tradition of military service that has defined the family. As the family splinters at their country home of Paramore, supernatural forces – the Wingrave ancestors – persecute Owen, eerily stepping out of their portraits. One of its musical highlights is the haunting Act two sequence ‘The Ballad Singer’, which retells the tragic family history. Britten’s only opera to have been written for television, it was commissioned for the BBC by Sir David Attenborough and filmed at Snape Maltings.
David Matthews’ reduced orchestration generated fresh interest in the opera following its 2007 debut at the Royal Opera’s Linbury Theatre, with one critic calling it “swifter and meatier” than the original. Scored for fifteen players – single woodwinds, horn, trumpet and trombone, two percussionists, piano and string quintet – it captures the mood and intimacy of Britten’s chamber operas The Turn of the Screw and Albert Herring – especially apt given the domestic focus of the drama.
It has had over 120 performances since its creation, with productions mounted by Chicago Opera Theatre (conducted by Steuart Bedford), Wiener Kammeroper, Opera Trionfo in the Netherlands, Opéra National du Rhin (conducted by David Syrus), Sydney Chamber Opera, Oper Frankfurt, and in a co-production from the Aldeburgh Festival and Edinburgh International Festival.
In July 2025 the original version of Owen Wingrave receives its Italian premiere at the Festival della Valle d'Itria in Martina Franca. The new production, in rep 27 July – 3 August, is directed by Andrea de Rosa, with Daniel Cohen conducting the Accademia del Teatro alla Scala; it stars Aeneas Humm, Ruairi Bowen, Charlotte-Anne Shipley, and Sharon Carty.