Britten - Albert Herring (YouTube)

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'For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone' (at any rate I hope so.) 'The flowers appear on the earth...'

So it's a good day to see this classic mid-80s Glyndebourne production of Albert Herring again. I'm glad to find it's still available in full on YT. I suppose Albert Herring must have been the first Britten opera I really got to know - I was in the pit for a production when I was an undergraduate. By the time I got to Peter Grimes and the others, I was already in France.

The production's by Peter Hall, Haitink conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and the cast is as follows:

  • Lady Billows: Patricia Johnson
  • Florence Pike: Felicity Palmer
  • Miss Wordsworth: Elizabeth Gale
  • Mr Gedge: Derek Hammond-Stroud
  • Mr Upfold: Alexander Oliver
  • Superintendent Budd: Richard Van Allan
  • Sid: Alan Opie
  • Albert Herring: John Graham-Hall
  • Nancy: Jean Rigby
  • Mrs Herring: Patricia Kern
  • Emmie: Maria Bovino
  • Cis: Bernadette Lord
  • Harry: Richard Peachey.


Albert's May Day ceremony also pairs quite nicely with the wonderful Comices Agricoles in Madame Bovary, which I was re-reading only last night. Maupassant's original short story, also set in Normandy, Le Rosier de Madame Husson, can be found free online here (pp 5-41).


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