Peter Pears

Sir Peter Neville Luard Pears CBE ( /ˈpɪərz/ PEERZ; 22 June 1910 – 3 April 1986) was an English tenor who was knighted in 1978. His career was closely associated with the composer Edward Benjamin Britten.

He was born at Newark House, Searle Road, Farnham, Surrey, and educated at Lancing College. He went on to study music at Keble College, Oxford, serving as organist at Hertford College, but left without taking his degree. He later studied voice for two terms at the Royal College of Music. He claimed that it was hearing the tenor Steuart Wilson singing the Evangelist in J.S. Bach's St Matthew Passion that "started me off".

In 1936, while a member of the BBC Singers, he met Benjamin Britten, who was to become his life partner. Pears and Britten gave their first recital together in 1937 at Balliol College, Oxford University. In April 1939, Britten and Pears left for America together as pacifists, a few months before the outbreak of war between the British Empire and Germany. There, in 1940, Britten composed Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, the first of many song cycles for Pears. Upon their return to England in April 1942, when they both registered as conscientious objectors, they performed the song cycle at Wigmore Hall on 23 September, and then recorded them for EMI, their first recording together.

Many of Britten's works contain a main tenor role written specifically for Pears. These include the Nocturne, the Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings, the Canticles, the operas Peter Grimes and Albert Herring (title roles), his adaption of The Beggar's Opera (Macheath), Owen Wingrave (Sir Philip Wingrave), Billy Budd (Captain Vere), The Turn of the Screw (Quint), Death in Venice (Aschenbach) and the three Church Parables.

Pears was co-librettist for A Midsummer Night's Dream, and created one of his few comic roles in it. As Flute the bellows-mender, he performed a drag parody of Dame Joan Sutherland in the mad scene of Lucia di Lammermoor.

His voice was controversial, the vocal quality being unusual. Felix Benson described it as "dry and white" and that "it took some getting used to". It was cruelly said that he had one good note, E a third above middle C, which is why the crucial aria of Peter Grimes, "Now the Great Bear and Pleiades", is mainly written on that note. Its quality did not always record well, but there is no doubt that he had unusually good articulation and vocal agility, of which Britten also took advantage. His delivery, and Britten's compositional style, were mercilessly (and accurately) satirised by Dudley Moore in Beyond the Fringe (Little Miss Muffet).

He made his Metropolitan Opera début in October 1974 as Aschenbach in Death in Venice. He sang regularly at the Royal Opera House and other major opera houses in Europe and the United States.

During his life he was considered a notable interpreter of Franz Schubert's Lieder, usually with Britten as accompanist. He also gave notable performances as the Evangelist in Bach's Passions.

Pears, a Sponsor of the Peace Pledge Union, died at Red House, Aldeburgh, Suffolk, and is buried in the churchyard of St Peter and St Paul's Church in Aldeburgh, Suffolk. Benjamin Britten's grave is next to his, near the grave of Imogen Holst, a close friend.