A century before Miley Cyrus, it was male performers — like Nijinsky — who bared all 

While the airwaves resonate with celebrations of Britten’s birth, I cannot help thinking that what was happening in Paris at that very moment was light-years away, not only from Lowestoft, but also from London. The cultural distance between the two metropolises can never have been greater than it was in 1913, and one can only imagine what Lowestoft was like then. The Britten family home, where Benjamin was born, is still standing, but it gives few clues to the life the family lived — inevitably restricted not only by location but also by lack of money. His father had once had the dream of becoming a gentleman farmer, but in the end had to settle for being a dentist.

Cut to Paris, where the most glamorous if not notorious episode in the history of classical music was unfolding. What Paris was like in the months before the first world war is the stuff of legend.