Phyllida Lloyd’s acclaimed adaptation for film of the opera that Benjamin Britten wrote for the celebrations of the Queen’s coronation in 1953, based on the Opera North revival of a work now recognised to be one of the composer’s great achievements.

Paul Daniel conducts the English Northern Sinfonia, with a cast inspired by electrifying performances from Josephine Barstow and Tom Randall as Elizabeth I and Essex.

Reviews

“… an unforgettable portrayal of Gloriana, imperious, fickle, dangerous, noble and, in the magnificent final scene in which she reviews her life, devastating. This performance is comparable in credibility to Callas’s Tosca …” (Sunday Telegraph)

“… Phyllida Lloyd’s superb production proves that Gloriana was never intended to be an occasional play. Set in a high walled showground that fills with fabulous pomp and opens into a prison cell, it emerges as a deeply felt drama of the struggle between public responsibility and private longing, and a moving exploration of the loneliness of those, like Britten, called to a high and hard destiny …” (Daily Telegraph)

“… The sheer beauty and vitality of this score must surely make anyone hearing it for the first time wonder how it could ever have been considered one of Britten’s lesser achievements. The splendor is fresh and free of pastiche, the lyrical passages are ravishing … In his Coronation Opera, Britten remained true to himself: he composed not a spectacle but an opera with profound, Verdian insight into the heart and soul of a man who has authority …” (Opera)