Chamber Opera

'... quite eclectic ...'

Next year is the centenary of Benjamin Britten's birth. Among his many legacies, he left us the recommendation and the forecast that the 'chamber opera' is the future of musical theatre. The recommendation was based on the consideration he developed during World War II that even high income countries would not be able to devote to opera the resources deployed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and that audiences would dwindle due to other forms of entertainment. The forecast has proven true: nowadays, only in the United States and in the Far East (namely, Korea and China) are there new operas composed requiring large orchestras, choruses, several principal singers and even ballet...