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Benjamin Britten: Source Stories of Twelve Operas

LibriVox recording
from archive.org

LibriVox recording of Benjamin Britten: Source Stories of Twelve Operas by Various.

Read in English by David Wales.

Britten's operas are firmly established in the international repertoire: according to Operabase, they are performed worldwide more than those of any other composer born in the 20th century, and only Puccini and Richard Strauss come ahead of him if the list is extended to all operas composed after 1900. Britten went to various sources for his stories from the Bible to Japanese noh plays. This is a collection of twelve of the source stories. All but one are the original texts; the one exception is A Midsummer Night's Dream which the reader took from Charles Lamb's telling of the story. Some operas are omitted because no public domain texts could be found for their sources. Summary by Wikipedia and David Wales.

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Download M4B 01-17 (188MB)
Download M4B 18-32 (179MB)

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  2. Noye's Fludde. Bible, Book of Genesis, Chapters 6-10 (15.9Mb)
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  5. The Golden Vanity. Traditional English Ballad (5.6Mb)
  6. A Midsummer Night's Dream. Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream as told by Charles Lamb in Tales Of Shakespeare (24.5Mb)
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MP3 files hosted by archive.org.