LETTER FOUND FROM BRITAIN’S GREATEST OPERA COMPOSER’S DRAWER SHOWS HIS LOVE FOR RAVI SHANKAR
Curators sifting through thousands of objects belonging to Britain’s musical geniuses — composer Benjamin Britten and opera singer Peter Pears have stumbled upon an ink written page in their private diaries where the duo recalls their experience of having heard Pandit Ravi Shankar perform live. Britten and Pears had visited India in the early 1950s. Their diary, which was used to jot down their daily experiences in India calls Shankar “the real thing”. The letter will be part of a museum in the Red House in Suffolk – where Britten and Pears lived and worked from 1957 until their death. From 8 June 2013 the site re-opens in Aldeburgh after a £4.7 million redevelopment to commemorate the 100th birth anniversary of Britten — the world’s most performed opera composer born in the 20th century. The page with observations by Britten and Pears, available with TOI reads “an hour of the real thing. Ravi Shankar, a wonderful virtuoso, played his own Indian music to us at the radio station. Brilliant, fascinating, stimulating, wonderfully played. Unbelievable skill and invention.”