Cover -- Half-title -- Series-title -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- 1 Introduction: Britten's musical language -- 1. Utterance as speech event in Our Hunting Fathers -- 2. Beyond the voice: the song quotations in Lachrymae -- 3. The social utterance: divine speech and ritual in Noye's Fludde -- 2 Peter Grimes: the force of operatic utterance -- 1. Naming Grimes: speech as action in the Prologue -- 2. "The Borough is afraid": choric utterance in Act 1 -- 3. "God have mercy upon me": Peter's self-sentencing -- 4. The chorus and hate speech -- 5. "Melancholy and incipient Madness": Peter's last scene -- 3 Motive and narrative in Billy Budd -- 1. Motive as mystery in the Prologue -- (a) Thematic confusion -- (b) Problems of leitmotivic reference -- (c) The "Mutiny" cluster and motivic return -- 2. Claggart's Act 1 presence -- 3. Motive and narrative in Act 2 -- (a) Vere's silence -- (b) From summary to scene: narration, action and the flow of operatic time -- 4. Operatic "point of view": from Claggart's accusation to Billy's trial -- (a) Narrative discourse in Act 2 -- (b) Point of view in the "mist" interlude -- (c) Voice placement and the intimacy of focalized narrative -- (d) Doubling of speaking presence: the orchestral voice in the trial scene -- 4 The Turn of the Screw: innocent performance -- 1. The sound of the turn -- (a) The identity of the Screw theme -- (b) "Flights and drops": the turning screw as melodic impulse -- (c) Non-melodic turns: the mysterious pattern of each scene -- 2. Innocent ceremony: children's songs and the performance of interiority -- (a) Retrieving childhood -- (b) Performing childhood -- (c) Sinister scenes of play -- (d) Solitary yearning: senses of malo -- 3. Ghostly machines: the drama of themes -- (a) Themes as agents -- (b) The Thread theme as problematic utterance.

(c) Lost in the labyrinth: the Governess and Quint as doubles -- 4. The corrupt imagination: on seeing and hearing ghosts -- 5 Rituals: the War Requiem and Curlew River -- 1. Liturgy and trope in the War Requiem -- 2. Liturgy as ritual: theoretic perspectives -- 3. Utterance and stylistic register in the "Diesirae" -- 4. Tropes and irony: the "Offertorium" -- 5. Ritual disintegration -- 6. Curlew River as ritual -- 7. Ritual gesture -- 8. Estrangement and presence -- 9. "A sign of God's grace": acoustic mystery and the power of prayer -- 6 Subjectivity and perception in Death in Venice -- 1. "My mind beats on": the conscious self in Scene 1 -- 2. "The traveller's mind": inner and outer experience on the water -- (a) Inner and outer worlds on the boat to Venice, Scene 2 -- 3. "The charming Tadzio": Aschenbach's sonic gaze -- 4. "One moment of reality": the love vow as focal utterance -- 5. "Bliss of madness": the shattered operatic self in Act 2 -- (a) The pursuit (Scene 9) -- (b) The Strolling Players (Scene 10) -- 6. "I go now": parting utterance -- Notes -- 1 Introduction: Britten's musical language -- 2 Peter Grimes: the force of operatic utterance -- 3 Motive and narrative in Billy Budd -- 4 The Turn of the Screw: innocent performance -- 5 Rituals: the War Requiem and Curlew River -- 6 Subjectivity and perception in Death in Venice -- Bibliography -- Index.