Peter Pears was a singer with a presence. From the start you took notice and recognised him immediately when you saw him again. So it was for me in 1945, when he looked like a young public school Classics master, sporty, intellectual and elegant, his characteristic expression one of quietly ironical amusement. When I last saw him in recital he looked like a bishop, one of those tall, handsome bishops whose sanctity and undoubted authority cannot quite banish the thought that if the episcopacy had not called it might have been the stage. That would have been in the early 1970s when he gave with Britten a performance of Winterreise that might have been a summation of his life’s work as a singer. His voice was still pure in tone and perhaps more full-bodied than ever, and his artistry, technical and expressive, was that of an old master. Yet it is the sheer presence I remember most vividly.

So it is good to have that on film. Of these four DVDs, the two Britten operas are probably first to be sought, both in roles which, for those who saw him, he unforgettably created. Billy Budd comes after Peter Grimes in the canon but was the earlier of the television productions, dating from 1966. His patrician features, with the high forehead and aquiline nose, so perfectly suit Edward Fairfax Vere that this, of all roles, is the one with which he is most inseparably identified. The film production moves from the old man in his study to the Captain of the Indomitable aboard ship and back again, freely and movingly. Yet it’s an ambiguous portrayal, as when Budd’s “Starry Vere, God bless you” evokes, it seems, a smile of pleasure (in the film Billy Budd, Peter Ustinov flinched as though struck on the face). Opposite him are the burly Billy of Peter Glossop and the black-toned Claggart of Michael Langdon, heading a devoted and well cast company conducted by Charles Mackerras and produced with meticulous care by Basil Coleman.

But if Budd is to be strongly recommended, Grimes has to be urged, passionately: intensely moving, beyond expectations even though those were high. When the camera draws away from the people on the shore, the scene fades and the opera comes to an end with that dull, isolated thump, the sounds and sights do not release their hold upon the mind. The set built at the Maltings and filmed under difficulties becomes the Borough; it becomes our world as surely as it was the world for that narrow-minded community. Monolithic as a force, the chorus are all individuals and part of a marvellously individuated cast. Capacious Auntie, insect-like Mrs Sedley, nonchalant Ned Keene and axe-grinding Bob Boles are particularly real and right. Bryan Drake hasn’t quite the resources of warmth in his voice for Balstrode, but he carries weight, and Heather Harper sings with the most beautiful tone in the role of Ellen and acts with compelling sincerity. Pears himself is utterly vindicated: one sees niggling references, dutifully acknowledging classic status but undermining that with a pejorative “refined” or “intellectualised” or something similar, and it simply is not true. The whole complex character is there – and the camera follows closely. This was Pears’s last performance, in 1969, in the role: we are so lucky to have it.

The Idomeneo, also conducted by Britten, comes from 1970. Three days before what should have been the Aldeburgh premiere the hall was burnt down, and it is something of a miracle that this television production could go ahead. It too is a triumph. The staging is dignified but not austere, and again Pears and Harper impressively head the cast. The Idamante and Elektra are not ideally suited to their roles but both singers have admirable qualities. A rudely endowed monster bobs up and down ineffectually at the back. And our distinguished senior colleague, John Warrack, provides an introductory narrative, looking very young indeed.

For the Winterreise, Pears himself speaks a short introduction to each song. He appears in costume and against the background of a semi-abstract set suggesting a path and a walled road upon which the lighting is set to work imaginatively and unobtrusively. I don’t myself find that much is gained by the filming – as there is by the earlier concert in which Pears and Britten perform seven folksong arrangements and a song by Purcell. Pears’s charm is felt in this, and he sings with wonderful grace in “Tom Bowling”, a song not often included in his programmes. And – at last – we come to Britten’s contribution – but only to say that its merits lie beyond words. The four DVDs renew wonder at this man who lived among us, a familiar figure, and who made music, his own and others’, with the genius of unfailing skill and instinct.