Colin Graham

Gloriana, Op. 53, is an opera in three acts by Benjamin Britten to an English libretto by William Plomer, based on Lytton Strachey's 1928 Elizabeth and Essex: A Tragic History It was written to mark the 1953 coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

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.