The opera Billy Budd, with libretto by E. M. Forster and Eric Crozier after Herman Melville's story, premiered at Covent Garden, London, in December 1951. The opera, which is unique inasmuch as it has an all-male cast, presents a story, however circumspect, of shipboard homosexual panic.

Sponsor Message.

Attracted to the handsome Billy, the villainous master-at-arms Claggart enacts his desires by systematically attempting to destroy the young sailor. After Billy accidentally kills his nemesis, he is hanged for his murder, despite the affection that Captain Vere, the ship's commander, and the other sailors feel for the young man.

Because the slightly-built Pears lacked the physique to play the title role, the character Billy was written (implausibly, according to some critics) for baritone voice, and the part of Captain Vere, which was assigned to Pears, was made more prominent than it was in Melville's text.

Britten's next opera, Gloriana (1953) was written for the celebrations on the occasion of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Its libretto was by William Plomer, after Lytton Strachey's Elizabeth and Essex. Britten was consequently awarded the title of Companion of Honour, but the opera did not prove a critical success.

Plomer, however, continued to collaborate with Britten, and provided the libretti for the composer's three "Parables for Church Performance," Curlew River (1964), The Burning Fiery Furnace (1966), and The Prodigal Son (1968).

Britten also composed two operas based on works by Henry James, The Turn of the Screw (1954) and Owen Wingrave (1970), and also set William Shakespeare's A Midsummer's Night's Dream (1960) as an opera.

During this highly productive period, Britten composed a number of major non-operatic works as well. As befits Britten's pacifist beliefs, his War Requiem, arguably his greatest choral work, combines elements of the traditional Latin mass with passages from the anti-war poetry of Wilfred Owen. This moving piece was first performed in 1962, at the dedication of the new Coventry Cathedral, built on the site of the venerable medieval edifice that was completely destroyed by a German air raid in 1940.

Also notable is the Symphony in D Major for Cello and Orchestra (1963), which he wrote for his friend, Russian cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich.

Britten was appointed to the Order of Merit by Queen Elizabeth in 1965.

Britten's last great operatic triumph was Death in Venice (1973), based on Thomas Mann's novella. The work delineates the decline of the middle-aged critic Aschenbach (a role created by Pears) as he becomes increasingly obsessed with Tadzio, a young boy he loves from afar.

Earlier in 1973, Britten had undergone open-heart surgery to replace a defective cardiac valve. The surgery left him an invalid for the remainder of his life, yet he recovered sufficiently to attend the first performance of his final opera.

In 1976, Britten was awarded a life peerage by the Queen and given the title Baron Britten of Aldeburgh. His poor health made it impossible for him ever to take his seat in the House of Lords. He died of heart failure on December 4, 1976, in the arms of Peter Pears, at their home in Aldeburgh.

Britten left an extensive body of compositions comprising operas, choral works, symphonies, song cycles, concerti for piano and violin, chamber music, and numerous miscellaneous pieces.

Among the better known are the Simple Symphony (1925), Hymn to St. Cecilia (1942), Serenade (for tenor, horn, and strings, 1943), and The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (1945). His last major work, Phaedra, a song cycle composed for contralto Dame Janet Baker, had its first performance shortly before his death.

In spite of the presence of many gay, lesbian, and bisexual figures in the field of classical music, it is difficult to identify more than a handful of self-identified, openly gay or lesbian conductors even in the early years of the twenty-first century.

Classical music is an important component of Western culture to which glbt people have contributed significantly.

Opera, an eclectic synthesis of voice, drama, music, costume, visual arts and spectacle, has played an integral role in queer culture since its development in seventeenth century Venice.

One of the most accomplished poets of the twentieth century, W. H. Auden found that his gayness led him to new insights into the universal impulse to love and enlarged his understanding of all kinds of relationships.

For most of his life, the specter of the closet lurked threateningly behind the glamorous and often brash public image of American composer Leonard Bernstein.

Widely recognized as one of the world's greatest pianists, Shura Cherkassky performed for more than 75 years, enjoying the longest career in the history of classical pianism.

English dancer, choreographer, producer, and teacher of drama Rupert Doone had a varied and distinguished artistic career.

One of the finest English novelists of the twentieth century and a tireless defender of humane values, Forster deserves a special place in the gay and lesbian literary heritage.

The British concert pianist Stephen Hough is among the most talented and most highly acclaimed classical musicians of his generation.

British director Sir Nicholas Hytner is acclaimed for his work on musicals and plays in London as well as New York, and also for directing films and operas.

A major Anglo-American novelist and a pioneer in the gay liberation movement, Christopher Isherwood created gay characters whose homosexuality is a simple given, an integral part of the wholeness of personality and an emblem of their common humanity.

Though closeted, Henry James had a number of intimate relations with young men, and his sexual orientation imbued his fiction.

One of Germany's greatest twentieth-century authors, Thomas Mann encoded his own homosexuality in his novels but thought that homosexuality led to the destruction of social institutions and the death of the individual homosexual.

The most important American novelist of the nineteenth century, Herman Melville reflects his homosexuality throughout his texts.

Best known for his genius in art and architecture, Michelangelo was also an accomplished author of homoerotic poetry.

Highly respected British tenor Sir Peter Pears was the life partner of composer Benjamin Britten, who wrote leading roles in many of his operas for him.

Although overt homosexuality is absent from William Plomer's novels and poems, the relevance of his sexuality to his work is evident.

One of the first openly gay composers, Francis Poulenc became one of the most thoughtful composers of serious music in the twentieth century.