{"id":1054,"date":"2019-09-08T10:09:28","date_gmt":"2019-09-08T17:09:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/threepennyreview.com\/lesserblog\/?p=1054"},"modified":"2019-09-08T10:12:17","modified_gmt":"2019-09-08T17:12:17","slug":"brittens-billy-budd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/threepennyreview.com\/lesserblog\/brittens-billy-budd\/","title":{"rendered":"Britten’s Billy Budd"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am not used to thinking of the twentieth century as a period that produced great operas, but two of my favorites\u2014Alban Berg’s Wozzeck<\/em> and Benjamin Britten’s Billy Budd<\/em>\u2014were first performed in 1925 and 1951, respectively. I have never seen a bad production of either, and whether this is attributable to my good luck, the excellent taste of those who choose to put them on, or simply the unbeatable\u00a0merits of the works themselves is something I cannot answer.<\/p>\n

The San Francisco Opera<\/a>‘s current Billy Budd<\/em>\u2014a production imported from Glyndebourne, and originally directed by\u00a0the English theater and opera director Michael Grandage\u2014is no exception. I saw it last night, at its opening night at the War Memorial Opera House, and found myself as moved as I ever am by the tremendous music and the powerful story. Melville deserves a certain amount of credit here, of course, for his canny ability to translate the Christ story into semi-modern terms, creating a sympathetic Pilate in the process. But it is Britten’s genius that overwhelms one repeatedly in the course of listening to this great score. At every moment of the intense plot, the music echoes not only the internal feelings of the characters and their intimate interactions, but also the vast surrounding environment of the sea. Conductor Lawrence Renes and the orchestra of the San Francisco Opera took full advantage of every nuance; if there had been no show to watch, the musical performance alone would have been worth attending.<\/p>\n

There was<\/em> a show, however, and it was excellently acted and beautifully sung, for the most part. Particular standouts included Christian Van Horn in the role of Claggart (he almost<\/em> succeeded in temporarily effacing from my\u00a0memory Robert Ryan’s terrific\u00a0performance in the Ustinov movie) and William Burden’s in the star turn as Captain Vere. Written for Britten’s lover and companion, the tenor Peter Pears, Captain Vere is certainly one of the most interesting and complicated figures ever introduced into an opera. He is both the hero and the villain of the piece, in that he is responsible for Billy’s death but also guilt-ridden about his\u00a0responsibility, simultaneously aware that he has to enforce\u00a0the War Powers Act against a sailor who murders a superior\u00a0and\u00a0cognizant of the fact that Billy is at root innocent. Claggart is, if anything, even more fascinating, a combination of Iago and Hamlet, as it were\u2014someone who reflects aloud, intelligently and perceptively, on the depths of his own evil. Together, these two major characters loom over the production,\u00a0forcing Billy himself into a comparatively smaller role.<\/p>\n

Which, in this case, proved to be a good thing. John Chest, the baritone selected to play the Handsome Sailor, had the necessary good looks, but that’s about all he had. He was fit but not very big\u00a0(Billy is always described as towering over Claggart, but this one certainly didn’t), so his body alone can’t have won him the part. His voice was not strong enough to project completely\u2014a deficit that showed up especially in the group folk-sing, where a number of\u00a0sailors take turns at performing\u00a0a slightly off-color song\u2014and his deep tones often lacked any kind of musicality or delicate inflection. Worst of all, he delivered his vocal lines in\u00a0a plummy upper-class manner that seemed\u00a0at odds with the character of Billy, a poor “foundling” who speaks simply and sometimes\u00a0ungrammatically. Chest’s inadequacies by no means ruined the show,\u00a0but he certainly did not add much to it.<\/p>\n

Everything else was terrific, though, up to and including the stage design.\u00a0Reminiscent of a giant ribcage opened out to our view, with its\u00a0lower, upper, and sidelong curves, the single set conveyed\u00a0both a realistic ship’s interior and a vulnerably eviscerated body. Christopher Oram deserves the credit for that, along with lighting designers Paule Constable and David Manion.\u00a0High marks, too,\u00a0should go\u00a0to\u00a0Ian Rutherford, who revived\u00a0Grandage’s 2010 production and also directed the excellent chorus. It was, if not a perfect evening at the opera, a deeply satisfying and intensely moving one, and I think that’s\u00a0quite good enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am not used to thinking of the twentieth century as a period that produced great operas, but two of my favorites\u2014Alban Berg’s Wozzeck and Benjamin Britten’s Billy Budd\u2014were first performed in 1925 and 1951, respectively. I have never seen … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[432,92,602,605,604,603,365,362],"class_list":["post-1054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-lesser-blog","tag-benjamin-britten","tag-billy-budd","tag-christian-van-horn","tag-christopher-oram","tag-ian-rutherford","tag-lawrence-renes","tag-san-francisco-opera","tag-william-burden"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/threepennyreview.com\/lesserblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/threepennyreview.com\/lesserblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/threepennyreview.com\/lesserblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threepennyreview.com\/lesserblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threepennyreview.com\/lesserblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1054"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/threepennyreview.com\/lesserblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1054\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1057,"href":"https:\/\/threepennyreview.com\/lesserblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1054\/revisions\/1057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/threepennyreview.com\/lesserblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threepennyreview.com\/lesserblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threepennyreview.com\/lesserblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}