Well, as far as I can tell from the music and from the constantly recurring themes (subject matter, not tunes), I don't think that's entirely unfair in the sense that to me there seems indeed to have been something in Britten's soul which disturbed him deeply and which he spent his life's work confronting. (Of course how Tear goes on from there I can't sign up to to even that extent.) To me that's what makes his work so special, though! - to lament that he could have been otherwise 'if only' seems not only pointless in itself but to miss the point of what makes Britten Britten. But maybe I would say that - I haven't managed to get anything out of Verdi so far...

I do remember a Tear interview once where the comment 'Imagine if he'd been with someone like Jon Vickers' was attributed to Tear. I remember thinking then 'what utter nonsense'.

Just imagine if Britten had been a Leo. How would his music have been then?

(Or if he was, imagine if he'd been a Pisces, whatever, it's not really the point...)

That's quite true, Olly, except that I don't see how the words "abyss" or "soul" can be used - but then I am  attributing more complexity to Tear's thinking and use of words than he deserves

Actually it's more likely that I am! As in: the nuance I'm finding is perhaps one Tear didn't mean.

(Etymologically 'abyss' just means something 'immeasurably deep' or literally 'bottomless' - I suspect that's a nuance Tear didn't have in mind either )

Strangely enough, I think these are the reasons why I would prefer Britten over Verdi.  With Verdi (although, to be fair, I haven't yet ventured out that far into Verdi-land, so the following comment is entirely provisional) an outburst of anger, a moment of melancholy, heart-breaking sadness, bubbling joy,... all sounds like 19Cth Italian romantic music to me  .  It's as if Verdi's particular musical idiom comes between the drama and myself, as an obstacle.
With Britten's ecclectic musical style, as you say, the music is maybe less unified stylistically, but it always sticks to the character or the drama (what with the individually characterized town figures in Peter Grimes and Albert Herring, naval brass in Billy Budd, St.-Marks' bells and damp weather music in Death in Venice...)


As for the Tear comment, the fact that Britten's music rarely goes over the top and is written very 'thinly' is just one of the things that attracts me so profoundly to it  .

Edit: regarding Verdi, I'm convinced the fault is mine.

Well, simply I find a certain emotional reticence (combined with a lack of real ability to create rich female characters, let alone to express sexuality) is more often the case than not in a lot of Britten's work - there are really powerful moments in a few places, but much which simply seems a bit tame and half-baked. Claggart's Credo in Billy Budd ultimately seems a step backwards from that of Iago in Otello, and overall Britten seems content to create a certain 'state' at the beginning of one of his vignettes and mosly sustain that throughout; I realise his models were Mozart and Verdi in this respect (and he expressed sentiments in that way), but his characterisations often lack the acute refinement that those earlier composers have. Verdi's cantilenas are consistently gorgeous, passionate, charged (for example the first in Ernani, Elvira's 'Surta è la notte'); Britten rarely achieved anything like that, nor do his ensemble pieces have the drama, virtuosity, and fantastic sense of interaction between characters as Verdi's do. Overall, I'd put it down to something as simple as characteristic British reserve or the like - I can't but imagine that a lot of non-British people would hear it that way. But I'd be interested in some opinions in this respect - I know that Britten's reputation isn't limited to these islands, by any means, but how is his work perceived elsewhere? Would his operatic work often be considered to be on a par with an internationally acknowledged master like Verdi?

(I do like some Britten very much, by the way, but also realise that some of the things that appeal to me, as a Briton, might not have the same meaning to others, and am wary of a general British-style wild adulation of those from their own shores)

I too am wary of "British-style wild adulation of those from their own shores", as Ian puts it, and in fact Britten and Purcell are the only English composers I really like. There is no point, though, in accusing Britten of not doing things he did not set out to do, or of not being something he didn't aim to be. His work isn't about the expression of sexuality - when it's about sexuality at all, it's usually about the suppressing of it, so that there is a powerful eroticism in much of it, but it is just under the surface, submerged, but nevertheless there and seething - in Billy Budd, Turn of the Screw, Death in Venice. The repression and the problems it brings are the point. He's not a southern European, he's English, and English of possibly the most repressed generation ever (though his sexuality would have caused difficulties in most times and most places). We don't criticise Verdi for being Italian - why criticise Britten for his Englishness? If he'd been aiming at dealing with the expression of sexuality, he wouldn't have chosen the texts he did. That's what I like about Britten operas - not one corny love story among them, but something much more complex, unexpected and subtle. I like Verdi too, but I think Britten is much more interesting.

As for female characters, I agree that Ellen Orford is a cypher, albeit one with some marvellous music to sing, but Gloriana, Tytania and the Governess are strong creations.

Fair point about having been through this before, Ron, was just responding to Mary's request to elaborate. Maybe all things told I simply find an Italian sensibility more appealing, but I do think there are other levels on which Verdi was a more accomplished composer in many ways (but then I'm a huge Verdi fan, especially since I studied right through all of his operas a couple of years ago).