After having composed and staged The Rape of Lucretia, Britten decided he should attempt a comedy, preferably set in England. Crozier suggested adapting the Maupassant short story Le rosier de Madame Husson and transplanting it to the Suffolk landscape already familiar to Britten from his home in Snape. Britten composed Albert Herring at his home, The Old Mill at Snape, in the winter of 1946 and the spring of 1947. He scored the opera for the same instrumental forces he had used in his first chamber opera The Rape of Lucretia, intending it like the earlier opera for performance by the English Opera Group.

Librettist Eric Crozier (The libretto, by Eric Crozier, was based on Guy de Maupassant's novella Le Rosier de Madame Husson, with the action transposed to an English setting.)
Date of composition 1947 (December 1946 - April 1947)
Premiered 1947, June 20th (Glyndebourne) in Sussex, WI, United States
Dedicated to 'Dedicated to E.M. Forster, in admiration'
Type Opera
Catalogue BTC 1011
Approx. duration 137 minutes
Spoken language English
Instruments Voice (Soprano) - Lady Billows, an elderly autocrat
Voice (Contralto) - Florence Pike, her housekeeper
Voice (Soprano) - Miss Wordsworth, a schoolteacher
Voice (Baritone) - Mr. Gedge, the vicar
Voice (Tenor) - Mr. Upfold, the mayor
Voice (Bass) - Superintendent Budd
Voice (Baritone) - Sid, a butcher's assistant
Voice (Tenor) - Albert Herring, from the greengrocer's
Voice (Mezzo-Soprano) - Nancy, from the bakery
Voice (Mezzo-Soprano) - Mrs. Herring, Albert's mother
Voice (Soprano) - Emmie
Voice (Soprano) - Cis
Voice (Treble) - Harry
Autotranslations beta Benjamin Britten: Albert Herring, BTC 1011
Benjamin Britten: Albert Herring, BTC 1011
Benjamin Britten: Albert Herring, BTC 1011