best-known roles. In December she met John Barbirolli while working on another Elgar piece, Sea Pictures; the conductor later became one of her closest friends and strongest advocates. On 15 September 1945 Ferrier made her debut at the London Proms, when she sang L'Air des Adieux from Tchaikovsky's opera The Maid of Orleans. Although she often sang individual arias, opera was not Ferrier's natural forte; she had not enjoyed singing the title role in a concert version of Bizet's Carmen at Stourbridge in March 1944, and generally avoided similar engagements. Nevertheless, Benjamin Britten, who had heard her Westminster Abbey Messiah performance, persuaded her to create the role of Lucretia in his new opera The Rape of Lucretia, which was to open the first postwar Glyndebourne Festival in 1946. She would share the part with Nancy Evans. Despite her initial misgivings, by early July Ferrier was writing to her agent that she was "enjoying [the rehearsals] tremendously and I should think it's the best part one could possibly have". Ferrier's performances in the Glyndebourne run, which began on 12 July 1946, earned her favourable reviews, although the opera itself was less well received. On the provincial tour which followed the festival it failed to attract the public and incurred heavy financial losses. By contrast, when the opera reached Amsterdam it was greeted warmly by the Dutch audiences who showed particular enthusiasm for Ferrier's performance. This was Ferrier's first trip abroad, and she wrote an excited letter to her family: "The cleanest houses and windows you ever did see, and flowers in the fields all the way!" Following her success as Lucretia she agreed to return to Glyndebourne in 1947, to sing Orfeo in Gluck's opera Orfeo ed Euridice. She had often sung Orfeo's aria Che farò ("What is life") as a concert piece, and had recently recorded it with Decca. At Glyndebourne, Ferrier's limited acting abilities caused some difficulties in her relationship with the conductor, Fritz Stiedry; nevertheless her performance on the first night, 19 June 1947, attracted warm critical praise. Ferrier's association with Glyndebourne bore further fruit when Rudolf Bing, the festival's general manager, recommended her to Bruno Walter as the contralto soloist in a performance of Mahler's symphonic song cycle Das Lied von der Erde. This was planned for the 1947 Edinburgh International Festival. Walter was initially wary of working with a relatively new singer, but after her audition