Sixty years after its première at Aldeburgh Festival, a brand new production of Benjamin Britten’s opera Curlew River is now available to watch on the BBC. Filmed for screen earlier this year at the 75th Aldeburgh Festival, this 5-star performance is accompanied by specially shot footage from the gorgeous Fenlands of East Anglia.

The first of Britten's three ‘Parables for Church Performance’, Curlew River is based on the Japanese Noh play Sumidagawa, which Britten saw during a visit to Japan in early 1956. In a broadcast message to the people of Japan following his visit, Britten declared that he had come to regard Noh plays as ‘among the greatest theatrical experiences of my life’.

Britten and librettist William Plomer adapted the story from the 15th-century play, studying its history and the techniques of Noh performance, and working it into a new context of medieval religious drama. On its first performance The Times described the work as ‘possibly the start of a new, perhaps the most important, stage of Britten’s creative life’.

With a stellar cast including tenor Ian Bostridge, bass-baritone Sir Willard White, baritones Marcus Farnsworth and Duncan Rock, and singers and instrumentalists from the Britten Pears Young Artist Programme, the production is led by music director Audrey Hyland.

At the centre of the opera is a woman in search of her lost child – the Madwoman, a role for which Ian Bostridge is acclaimed. The Madwoman is drawn to the Curlew River where she crosses in a boat with a group of pilgrims who are on their way to visit the grave of a young boy who died on the riverbank a year ago. After being persuaded to pray at the tomb with the pilgrims, the spirit of the boy appears, relieving her torment.

The story unfolds in the atmospheric surroundings of Blythburgh Church in Suffolk, with stage production from Deborah Warner and a creative team that includes designer Christof Hetzer and lighting designer Mike Gunning.

The Director and Exec Producer is Dominic Best and the Commissioning Editor for the BBC is Stephen James-Yeoman.

You can watch the full performance of Curlew River on BBC iplayer.

Find out more about Curlew River here.