i read that the opera's better than the movie, but i haven't seen the movie (Mann supposedly based Aschenbach on Mahler, and I'm a HUGE Mahler fan. it seems kinda disrespectful to one of my favorite composers, who was certainly NOT al BL). I read the end of the book for curiosuty's sake, though, and it was heart-wrenching.

If anything, Britten probably internalized the story so much that the results will probably be unbearably painful to us BLs. I'm hoping it makes me cry me eyes out (in a kind of masochistic way).