Philip Brett (1937-2002) was Distinguished Professor of Musicology at the University of California, Los Angeles. In addition to dozens of scholarly editions of English Renaissance music and pioneering articles in a wide variety of fields, he is author of Benjamin Britten: Peter Grimes and coeditor of Queering the Pitch: The New Gay and Lesbian Musicology, Cruising the Performative: Interventions into the Representation of Ethnicity, Nationality, and Sexuality, and Decomposition: Post-Disciplinary Performance. George Haggerty is Professor of English at the University of California, Riverside.

"Philip Brett changed the way we hear Britten's music, compelling us to listen anew for its sounding-out of political, sexual, and cultural meanings. Brett's richly detailed historical awareness, his supple and subtle theoretical mind, his sheer musicianship - these are qualities clear on every page of this book." - Philip Rupprecht, author of Britten's Musical Language"

• Preface George Haggerty Introduction Susan McClary 1. Britten and Grimes 2. "Grimes Is at His Exercise": Sex, Politics, and Violence in the Librettos of Peter Grimes 3. Grimes and Lucretia 4. Salvation at Sea: Britten's Billy Budd 5. Character and Caricature in Albert Herring 6. Britten's Bad Boys: Male Relations in The Turn of the Screw 7. Britten's Dream 8. Eros and Orientalism in Britten's Operas 9. Keeping the Straight Line Intact? Britten's Relation to Folksong, Purcell, and His English Predecessors 10. Pacifism, Political Action, and Artistic Endeavor 11. Auden's Britten 12. The Britten Era Afterword Jenny Doctor Appendix: Philip Brett's Britten Scholarship Works Cited Index