Crozier, Eric (1914–1994)

English librettist and stage director. He wrote the libretti for Benjamin Britten's Albert Herring (1946), Saint Nicolas (1948), Let's Make an Opera (1949), and Billy Budd (with E M Forster, 1951).

He studied in London and Paris and produced plays for British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) television 1936–39. He was associated with Britten from 1945 and co-founded with him the English Opera Group in 1947 and the Aldeburgh Festival in 1948. He produced the premiere of Peter Grimes in 1945 and its US first performance, at Tanglewood, in 1946, and the premiere of The Rape of Lucretia, at Glyndebourne, England, in 1946. He also translated operas by Verdi, Mozart, and Richard Strauss.