Rutland Boughton and the Glastonbury festivals - Michael Hurd

The English composer Rutland Boughton is remembered as the composer of "The Immortal Hour", the opera which enjoyed the greatest number of consecutive performances the world has ever known. But his was more than a one-off success. In 1914 he established his own Bayreuth at Glastonbury where, against all the odds, he ran a series of increasingly ambitious festivals until, in 1927, he allowed his socialist principles to undermine everything he had achieved. His unconventional views on life and marriage earned him notoriety in his lifetime, and made him one of England's most colourful and courageous composers.;Michael Hurd has revised and expanded his 1962 biography of Boughton. With the help of Boughton's autobiographical writings and letters from his friends and colleagues, including a series from George Bernard Shaw, he charts the career of the most significant and innovative British opera composer of his day. Also included are catalogues of Boughton's compositions and literary works, together with complete cast lists of the Glastonbury Festivals.