NEW YORK (UPI) - It wasn't long ago that the Who, a British group which sprang into prominence here in the wake of the Beatles, was best-known for its ability to smash guitars to splinters on stage at the climax of nearly every show.

But the release this year of just one album has placed the Who, known for several years as an inventive, fine-sounding foursome, among the ranks of the genuine English creators, along with the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Beegees.

The record is a two-disc set called "Tommy," and it's different because it's a rock opera, complete on the recording, composed chiefly by the Who's leader, Peter Townshend.

It is a moving, musically inspired tale of the unhappy life of a boy born deaf, dumb and blind.

"We wanted to let rock tell a story," said Townshend. "I felt rock should be capable of relating a complete experience."

Townshend said he was first struck with the inspiration to write a complete opera in 1967. Several rock operatic efforts had been made but Townshend was discouraged with the idea at the time, especially since he felt the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper" had come close to filling the void left by the absence of opera in the rock scene.

Making Tommy deaf, dumb and blind is the chief device, but Townshend was vague on the real motivation for it. "It just emerged," he said, "that that was the right thing to do."

The opera went into the sweeping rewrite when Townshend decided he wanted the work to lend itself to production as a film, but he said he had no plans for shooting the opera at the present time.

Will the Who return to their guitar smashing, drum kicking ways of old?

"We gave it up 4,000 million times," said vocalist Roger Daltrey. But Townshend, who says he's sworn off smashing his instrument at the conclusion of each performance, joked that the matter is more a matter of economics than anything else. "In every town we had to buy guitars," he said.

"At one point, we were going through so many of them," he said, "I was buying them in pawn shops."

A new electric guitar of the type used by the Who costs about $160.

FROM RIDICULOUS TO SUBLIME - It wasn't long ago that The Who, a British group which sprang into prominence in the wake of the Beatles, was best known for its ability to smash guitars to splinters on stage at the climax of nearly every show. From (left) are Keith Moon; leader Peter Townshend; John Entwhistle and Peter Daltrey. (UPI-TJ Telephoto.)