BY BENJAMIN IVRY [NY Sun, 27 November 2006]

The Queen, it seems, is all the rage. First it was television, on which Dame Helen Mirren made her wildly successful acting turn as Elizabeth I in the eponymous Golden Globe-winning TV film. Then it was the movies, in which Ms. Mirren played Queen Elizabeth II in film director Stephen Frears's much buzzed about "The Queen." Now such royal mania may extend to the opera stage, where there are signs that a longdismissed opera by Benjamin Britten about Elizabeth I,"Gloriana," may finally be gaining wide appreciation.