Britten’s Owen Wingrave is a curiously neglected opera.  It’s rarely performed live and the only recorded versions are 2 CD recordings plus DVDs of TV productions.  The earliest of each feature Benjamin Luxon in the title role and Peter Pears as General Wingrave.  The DVD version holds up surprisingly well for a 1970 TV production.  The later DVD version is also over 20 years old and features Gerald Finley in a, to my mind, ill conceived production for Channel 4 updated to the 1950s.  So I was interested to get my hands on a 2008 Chandos recording with Peter Coleman-Wright as Owen.

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