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New York: Stewart, Tabori and Chang, 1997 96 pages, $9.95
The cover announces that this volume is part of Outlines, the "first series of books to explore and portray the various and often unexpected ways in which homosexuality has informed the life and creative work of the influential gay and lesbian artists, writers, singers, dancers, composers and actors of our time." In the two decades since the death of Benjamin Britten, the impact of his sexual orientation on his life and creative work has been explored and portrayed in a number of forums: books, articles, program notes, lectures, revisionist stagings. These explorations are roughly analogous to those dealing with the impact of Soviet political conditions on Dmitri Shostakovich and his music. Even when the results have been open to question, such studies identify the pressures, both external and internal, that shaped each composer and his music. In the case of Britten, it is something of an understatement to say that the work of Philip Brett, Humphrey Carpenter, Clifford Hindley, Christopher Palmer, and those who have followed them has powerfully affected our view of the composer and his music. Unfortunately, the work of Michael Wilcox is not of the same caliber. Whereas those writers' arguments are carefully qualified and painstakingly researched, Wilcox works much more superficially, often failing to examine evidence thoroughly or even to see an argument through to its conclusion. At times the supposedly central question of sexuality is subordinated to other concerns or treated without sufficient thought when it does appear. The discussion of The Rape of Lucretia illustrates these weaknesses. Although Wilcox begins by citing Britten's claim that he had been raped by a master at his school,1 much of the chapter is given over to criticism of the literary quality of the libretto (an easy but irrelevant target). When Wilcox does finally address the connection between Britten's claim and the opera, he focuses on the lack of "even the remotest hint of eroticism" in the encounter between Lucretia and Tarquinius: "Anger and violence are there in plenty, but eroticism not at all. Is this deliberate? Or was Britten, with his own sexual nature focused so sharply on nurturing the affections of pre-pubescent boys, simply out of his depth when trying...