Benjamin Britten’s Gloriana was commissioned by the Royal Opera House to mark the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953.

William Plomer drew on Lytton Strachey’s Elizabeth and Essex to create the libretto, which artfully combines modern and archaic forms of English. Britten’s score is similarly diverse: it mixes the sounds and manners of Tudor Eng-land – from lute songs to courtly dances – with the composer’s own dis-tinctive style.

Richard Jones directs a Gloriana with resonances of the 1950s – the era in which the opera was created. Moving from the pomp of state cere-mony to the intimacy of the Queen’s private rooms, Gloriana depicts the public and private faces of the Virgin Queen, and the deterioration of her relationship with the impulsive Earl of Essex.