Billy Budd: A Negative Piece?

[Guest]

Just been listening to Billy Budd, for the first time in about ten years (the Hickox recording).

What strikes me now - and what certainly struck me the one time I saw the opera staged at Covent Garden - is the overall bleakness of the piece. The impression I get from the Epilogue is that Vere is trying desperately to take something of value from the terrible events he is remembering.....only because the alternative is to surrender to despair at Man's capacity for evil. For me, this makes...Budd quite a nihilistic piece.

What does everyone else think?

[Chris Newman]

Confessional, Maybe?

[amateur51]

Confessional, Maybe?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XT_Han266eE&feature=related

[Chris Newman]

If I directed Billy Budd I would begin with Vere standing amongst shadowy people sitting in ranks. In the final scene I would play it the same way but gradually bring up the lights to reveal Vere at an Inquiry (rather like the present Iraq Inquiry)...the shadowy figures being the inquisitors and public.

Budd pours his heart out and forgives Vere. Vere feels as guilty as hell. It is pure late Verdi.

[LeMartinPecheur]

My feeling is that how you see it will depend very much on your on take on "the meaning of life". I saw the WNO production with Thomas Allen as a student (1972-3?) and at that age believed that there was some transcendent being giving purpose to our lives. It wasn't too difficult to see Vere as having that belief and therefore seeing Budd's life and death as in some way redemptive. Now my belief in any sort of god or afterlife has vanished I agree with Mandryka that it becomes a much less positive experience, though perhaps I'd stop short of 'nihilistic'. Surely Britten's own uneasy relationship with Christianity or theism entitles us to see the message as more ambiguous, less didactic than that word implies?

Chris Newman's staging idea looked OK at first glance, but don't we in any decent conventional 'solo' staging feel that Vere has in some sense been standing before a court of inquiry every minute of his life since Budd's execution? On reflection I'd stick with the solo version as less prescriptive, more open to our own undertandings and metaphors.

[JimD]

Not sure what you mean by 'negative' (or 'nihilistic'), Mandryka. Like much Britten, it focuses on the darker side of human existence. I find the ending uplifting (kind-of!) And, of course, Britten's music is as usual spellbinding.

[Mary Chambers]

I find the ending uplifting (kind-of!) And, of course, Britten's music is as usual spellbinding.

I agree. I think it can be seen as a kind of redemption 'He has saved me, and blessed me, and the love that passes understanding has come to me'. Britten might have been uneasy about Christianity, but he was steeped in it all the same, as was his librettist EM Forster. Billy can be seen as a Christ figure, but it's Britten, and you can take from it what you want. He didn't go in for the cut and dried - that's what I like!

Must go back to the 'What makes you cry?' thread....

[Nick Armstrong]

He didn't go in for the cut and dried - that's what I like!

Absolutely, Mary.

I know Billy Budd quite well. I prefer the second half. Billy's doom and Vere's reaction can be very moving. But I don't find the tragedy / guilt thing markedly bleaker than in other tragic operas.

The problem often seems to be how to play Claggart. It's so easy for him to be a two-dimensional villain, his vow to crush Billy seeming unconvincing. John Tomlinson was great at the ENO some years back - the hatred plainly being a twisted version of self-hatred when he couldn't cope with the effect Billy was having on him.

[Mandryka]

Absolutely, Mary.

I know Billy Budd quite well. I prefer the second half. Billy's doom and Vere's reaction can be very moving. But I don't find the tragedy / guilt thing markedly bleaker than in other tragic operas.

The problem often seems to be how to play Claggart. It's so easy for him to be a two-dimensional villain, his vow to crush Billy seeming unconvincing. John Tomlinson was great at the ENO some years back - the hatred plainly being a twisted version of self-hatred when he couldn't cope with the effect Billy was having on him.

I saw Tomlinson in the Barbican concert performance that preceded the Hickox recording.

But I thought Eric Halfvorsen's performance at the ROH was more memorably intense.

[bluestateprommer]

If anyone here wants to see an American (with one exception) take on Billy Budd, from the American heartland, Des Moines Metro Opera has made their video of their 2017 production of Billy Budd available:

https://desmoinesmetroopera.org/productions/billybudd/

Not to spoil too much the production details in advance, since everyone here should be able to watch the video without any production preconceptions, but since this was a production in a city in middle America (or rather, a suburb of said city, as Indianola, Iowa, the home of DMMO, is about 20 miles south of downtown Des Moines), I can say that Kristine McIntyre's production is traditional, and not at all off-the-wall like the Annelise Miskimmon production for Norwegian National Opera set on a 1940s-era submarine (which is another story in of itself, of course) that was available on the Opera Vision site, but just ended availability mid-day yesterday. Having also seen the outstanding Glyndebourne video of Billy Budd this week, you can rest assured that the DMMO production is not as stellar as the Glyndebourne prodution, and I'm not saying that just to be nice ;) .

For those who remember the Metropolitan Opera HD-cast of Akhnaten where Zachary James played the spoken role of Amenhotep III, you get to hear him sing as Claggart in this production. The one exception to the all-America flavor of this production is the Canadian tenor Roger Honeywell as Captain Vere. The orchestration is a slightly reduced instrumentation prepared under the supervision of Steuart Bedford, in what DMMO claimed was the first-ever staging with the reduced orchestration.

Again, Glyndebourne need not fear Des Moines Metro Opera here. But on its own, DMMO did quite a good job, IMHO. Not sure how much longer this video, and the other videos in their "Virtual Festival" will be available, but for fans of the opera, it's worth a watch.

[bluestateprommer]

The Met Opera's quarantine stream features a 1997 Billy Budd, conducted by Steuart Bedford, with Philip Langridge as Captain Vere, the first time this video has ever been featured in the Met Opera streams:

https://players.brightcove.net/102076671001/ShNTDWXQ_default/index.html?videoId=6258111261001

Sorry I didn't think to post this earlier, to give you all more notice on it. It's available for another 7 hours or so.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Absolutely, Mary.

I know Billy Budd quite well. I prefer the second half. Billy's doom and Vere's reaction can be very moving. But I don't find the tragedy / guilt thing markedly bleaker than in other tragic operas.

The problem often seems to be how to play Claggart. It's so easy for him to be a two-dimensional villain, his vow to crush Billy seeming unconvincing. John Tomlinson was great at the ENO some years back - the hatred plainly being a twisted version of self-hatred when he couldn't cope with the effect Billy was having on him.

I think the ‘problem’ (if it is one) is that Vere’s motives are never clear . Is he just ‘following orders’ - striking a superior officer is a capital offence (was it then ? ) or to go down the Freudian route : Is he exacting on Billy a revenge for his unconscious attraction to him (like Claggart) or because he realises he is a rival for the affections of the crew - or a bit of both . He never has the big reveal number “beauty” aria that Claggart has. The famous final encounter takes place unseen with those repeated F major chords. Some have criticised those as a bit of a cop-out ; others think they are a master stroke. I can never make up my mind - I do think the latter half of the first act the best music he ever wrote for the stage though. So Billy Budd either a masterpiece of Empsonian ambiguity or a bit of an artistic fudge?