Scott Cantrell

GEORGE RODGER/Time Life Pictures

The talents of singer Peter Pears (left) and composer Benjamin Britten are evident in two recently released DVDs.

A skilled pianist and conductor as well as composer, Benjamin Britten was lucky to live into the age of high-quality video and audio. His self-conducted audio recordings of his operas, the War Requiem and other works have rarely been out of the catalog, but his video legacy has had little exposure.

Now, thankfully, we have DVDs of pioneering BBC productions of Peter Grimes and Billy Budd in which Britten was directly involved. He conducts the 1969 Grimes, and was present at rehearsals and recording sessions for the 1966 Billy Budd, which was conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras.

Video quality (black-and-white for Billy Budd, color for Grimes ) is surprisingly good. Ditto sonics, though balances sometimes go awry, and in Billy Budd the singers and orchestra are in audibly different acoustics. You'll scarcely notice that both productions are in mono.

Both feature the tenor for whom the lead roles were conceived. Peter Pears, Britten's longtime lover, was also the composer's muse. His distinctive timbre and elegant expression inspired Britten's no less distinctive vocal lines.

If your idea of tenors revolves around the late Luciano Pavarotti, Pears might take some getting used to. The voice has a certain throaty quality, but also an amazing range of colors: sometimes blazing, sometimes smoldering.

In minefields of tricky intervals and harmonies, it's also amazing to hear a singer target pitches with such unerring precision. And rare is the singer who so elegantly forms words on so seamless a legato.

These DVDs also reveal Pears as a compelling actor. In Grimes, he progresses inexorably from the put-upon outcast, torn between dreams of domestic happiness and his own coarser impulses, to a man genuinely unhinged. In Billy Budd, he's the very incarnation of Captain Vere, his facade of noble stoicism cracked by moral quandaries. His reaction, in close-up, to Billy's last-minute plea for mercy is subtle and absolutely devastating.

It boggles the mind that a television network, even the august BBC, would construct such detailed sets for the seagoing Billy Budd. Designer Tony Abbott makes the various parts of the H.M.S. Indomitable so real we half expect to feel a bit of seasickness. Director Basil Coleman makes the characters and interactions no less vivid, but someone should have noticed that Billy's supposed to strike Claggard on the forehead, not in the gut.

When the BBC did Billy Budd, it did so with sets and cast in one studio and the orchestra and conductor in another; coordination was done with audio and video monitors and an assistant conductor. Disliking the arrangement, Britten yielded conducting duties to Sir Charles Mackerras.

Sure enough, there are little glitches of imperfect ensemble. And, fine though Sir Charles was (and is) as a conductor, one longs for Britten's unmatched authority. A couple of trumpet and violin smudges might have been tidied up, too.

As Billy, Peter Glossop certainly captures the young seaman's naive eagerness, with a virile baritone. But he doesn't quite personify Billy's two nicknames, "Baby" and "Beauty," and he's pretty prosaic in Billy's dreamy last aria.

Michael Langdon is a reptilian menace as the evil master-at-arms Claggart, but his imposing bass doesn't flawlessly center on crucial low notes. The rest of the cast is superb, including Robert Tear as a particularly plaintive Apprentice.

Grimes has a splendid cast throughout, with Heather Harper particularly winning as Ellen Orford, the decent schoolmarm who takes on Grimes as a cause. Britten's original Ellen, Joan Cross, here serves as stage director, finding surprising humor in the rowdy opening hearing.

The Grimes sets are more stylized than in Billy Budd: lots of rugged boards, with upstage projections of cloudscapes and turbulent sea. The orchestra plays gloriously for Britten.

Britten

A- Peter Grimes. Pears, Harper, Ambrosian Opera Chorus, London Symphony Orchestra, Britten (Decca DVD)

A Billy Budd. Pears, Glossop, Langdon, Ambrosian Opera Chorus, London Symphony Orchestra, Mackerras (Decca DVD)