Editing Peter Pears (section)

===Aldeburgh===
While on tour as Albert, Pears came up with the idea of mounting a festival in the small Suffolk seaside town of [[Aldeburgh]]. Britten had bought a house there, and the town was his principal residence for the rest of his life.<ref>Headington (1993), pp. 149–150; and Matthews, p. 89</ref> The [[Aldeburgh Festival]] was launched in June 1948, with Britten, Pears and Crozier directing it.<ref>White, p. 60</ref> For the inaugural festival,  ''Albert Herring'' played at the Jubilee Hall, and Britten's new cantata [[Saint Nicolas (Britten)|''Saint Nicolas'']], was presented in the parish church, with Pears as the tenor soloist.<ref>Matthews, pp. 92–93</ref> The festival was an immediate success and became an annual event that has continued into the 21st century.<ref>Hall, George. "Festival Overtures: Britten in Bloom", ''[[Opera (British magazine)|Opera]]'', Volume 64.4, April 2013, pp. 436–438</ref>

New works by Britten featured in almost every festival until his death in 1976. They included operas in which leading roles were created by Pears, and written with his voice in mind. They ranged from the comic (Flute in ''[[A Midsummer Night's Dream (opera)|A Midsummer Night's Dream]]'', 1960) to the deeply serious (Aschenbach in ''[[Death in Venice (opera)|Death in Venice]]'', 1973).<ref>Mason, Colin. "Benjamin Britten's 'Dream{{'"}}, ''The Guardian'', 11 June 1960, p. 5; and Greenfield, Edward. "Britten's Death in Venice", ''The Guardian'', 18 June 1973, p. 8</ref> His other creations at Aldeburgh included the Madwoman in ''[[Curlew River]]'' (1964), Nebuchadnezzar in ''[[The Burning Fiery Furnace]]'' (1966) and the Tempter in ''[[The Prodigal Son (Britten)|The Prodigal Son]]'' (1968).<ref name=grove>[[Alan Blyth|Blyth, Alan]].  [http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/21147 "Pears, Sir Peter"], Grove Music Online, Oxford University Press, accessed 15 October 2013 {{subscription required}}</ref>

For the English Opera Group during the 1950s, Pears also sang Macheath in Britten's radically revised version of ''[[The Beggar's Opera]]'', Satyavān in [[Gustav Holst|Holst]]'s ''[[Savitri (opera)|Sāvitri]]'', and the title role in Mozart's ''[[Idomeneo]]''.<ref name=grove/> At [[Royal Opera House|Covent Garden]] he created roles in operas by Britten and Walton: Vere in ''[[Billy Budd (opera)|Billy Budd]]'' (1951), Essex in ''[[Gloriana]]'' (1953), and Pandarus in ''[[Troilus and Cressida (opera)|Troilus and Cressida]]'' (1954). Among his roles in older operas were Tamino, Vašek, and David in ''[[Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg]]''.<ref name=grove/>

Throughout the 1940s and 1950s Pears continually expanded his recital and concert repertoire. He sang his first [[The Dream of Gerontius|Gerontius]] in 1944, and the tenor part in ''[[Das Lied von der Erde]]'' in the same year. From the late 1940s he gained an international reputation as the [[Evangelist (Bach)|Evangelist]] in the ''[[St Matthew Passion]]''.<ref>Headington, p. 149</ref> The music critic [[David Cairns (writer)|David Cairns]] wrote, "Pears's interpretation of the evangelist's part in the Bach Passions seemed complete as no other singer's: it encompassed every turn in the drama, the pity, the anger, the despair, the resignation."<ref name=cairns>Cairns, David. [http://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.newsbank.com:UKNB:LSTB&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rft_dat=0F92585F49A10A13&svc_dat=InfoWeb:aggregated5&req_dat=102CDD40F14C6BDA "A tenor of rare intelligence – Obituary of Sir Peter Pears"], ''[[The Sunday Times]]'', 6 April 1986</ref> In Lieder by [[Franz Schubert|Schubert]], [[Robert Schumann|Schumann]] and others he was almost always accompanied by Britten, a partnership that Headington calls "as nearly an artistic unity as could be imagined";<ref>Headington, p. 147</ref> Cairns calls their Lieder performances "never to be forgotten".<ref name=cairns/> They made recordings for Decca of ''[[Die schöne Müllerin]]'', ''[[Winterreise]]'' and  ''[[Dichterliebe]]'' that have remained in print since their first issue in the 1960s.<ref name=decca/>