John Shirley-Quirk

A version of Benjamin Britten's opera based on the Melville story. Will the virtuous young sailor Billy Budd be hanged for murder?

Long considered lost footage, this exceptional concert, which originally aired April 14, 1968, on the BBC, is a full-colour performance of Edward Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius recorded inside the stunning Canterbury Cathedral and featuring three of the greatest voices of the era: mezzo-soprano Dame Janet Baker, tenor Sir Peter Pears, and bass-baritone John Shirley-Quirk. Conducted by Sir Adrian Boult, ardent champion and esteemed interpreter of Elgar’s works, this concert film — which required eight of the nine existing colour cameras in the UK at the time — constitutes a rare and treasured artifact marking the beginning of high-quality colour footage of British operatic productions.

Tony Palmer's documentary about the staging of Britten's choral work.

Gustav Von Aschenbach, a passionate composer, arrives in Venice as a result of wanderlust and there meets a young man by whose beauty he becomes obsessed.

A family conflict ensues after Owen, the youngest of the proud military family Wingrave, expected to continue the family tradition and become a soldier, rejects violence and war and proclaims himself a pacifist.