At last, we have fallen for our great Britten It wasn't until 1992, when Opera North cast the charismatic Yorkshire soprano Josephine Barstow as Elizabeth I that the work finally took off. London's music critics flocked to Leeds, and raved about what they heard. Earlier this year, a new Covent Garden production highlighted the work's ravishing score. This time around, the audience kept cheering. The long-awaited success of Gloriana says much about a change in attitudes towards a man who was our finest opera composer. His greatest works, Peter Grimes and Billy Budd, were immediate triumphs. Even so, many regarded them as property of the London cognoscenti. Other works had trickier starts. "Mr Britten is still pursuing his old problem of seeing how much indigestible material he can dissolve in music," wrote the respected critic Frank Howes after the premiere of Albert Herring in 1947. Glyndebourne director John Christie, who had funded the work, expressed his distaste, supposedly telling friends on opening night: "This isn't our kind of thing, you know." Even Britten's friends were alarmed by his last opera, Death in Venice, fearing that he had gone too far in setting the tale of an elderly author obsessed by an attractive, unavailable youth. But, earlier this year, John Graham Hall's performance as Aschenbach in ENO's Death in Venice confirmed the rich complexity of a work that is surely now in the "masterpiece" section of the Britten canon. Albert Herring is staged this year in cities from Vancouver to Venice, having triumphantly returned to Glyndebourne five years ago. In the UK, residents of Leeds, Salford, Newcastle and Nottingham have shown their support for Britten by turning out in record numbers for Opera North's trilogy of Grimes, Death in Venice and A Midsummer Night's Dream. "I've met people who say they thought they didn't like Britten, but had never really tried him," says the company's general director, Richard Mantle. But they've come to see one of these pieces and immediately booked again for the others. So what has brought about this sharp rise in interest? Partly the passing of Britten's adversaries. His pacifism - and decision to stay in America during the first years of the war - put many people off his music. Right up until his death in 1976, there were those who regarded him as a "cowardly conchie" who didn't deserve the awards heaped upon him. Then there was his sexuality. Watching archive film of Britten and his partner Peter Pears performing together in comfortable cardigans, it's hard to believe that their cosy relationship could ever cause offence. The boy soprano David Hemmings was warned about Britten's proclivities before he created the role of Miles in Turn of the Screw. "You know he's a homo, don't you?" father warned son. To contemporary audiences, Britten's pacifism seems an irrelevant curiosity; ­­ his homosexuality of even less concern - something unlikely to colour how a newcomer to Britten hears his music. The long-running gossip and whispers about Britten's interest in adolescent boys were effectively stopped by the research of John Bridcut in his 2006 book, Britten's Children. Yes, Britten found working with young people exciting and inspiring - but that was as far as it went. In current times, it's reassuring that we can listen to Britten comfortable in the knowledge that he is unlikely to be the subject of a posthumous tabloid exposé. Then there is the music itself. Half a century ago, many raised on the great Austro-German symphonic repertoire viewed Britten as hard work. One of the curious benefits of the shaming collapse of state-school music education is that people now listen with more open ears, their tastes unshaped by centuries of rich heritage. And so Britten appeals. His music can be cinematically rich at one point; sparse and lonely at another. His word setting is without parallel, his stage characters accompanied by motifs and tunes that make us immediately warm to them or loathe them. It's never music that is easy, yet it is highly accessible. It sounds contemporary, yet reflects his passion for 500 years of English musical history. And his works are in our own national tongue, which means his plots don't require detailed study before the curtain rises. The centenary celebrations have prompted more interest in Britten's stage works than ever before; but this is not a mere anniversary rush. Our opera companies are busy making secret plans for the 2015 season and beyond. There is no doubt in my mind that in future Britten will be there in force, encroaching on the territory that Verdi, Mozart and Puccini have dominated for so long. Finally we have stopped being sniffy about our national opera composer. Petroc Trelawny presents "Breakfast" on BBC Radio 3