Description:
The aim of this paper is, from a comparative analysis of William Shakespeare ’s play and Henry James ’s novella, to study how Benjamin Britten and his librettists have emphasized certain interpretations of the two writers’ works. In order to demonstrate this, we will begin with a comparative analysis of the structures of the operas and the literary works they were inspired by ; then we will analyse the musical and dramatic techniques at work in Britten ’s two operas, including the symbolism of the singers ’ tessituras.