BRITTEN : BILLY BUDD

Radio New Zealand Concert network
Sunday 22nd of September 2013 at 3.03 - 7 pm
Sunday 14th of December 2008 at 3 - 6 pm

BRITTEN: Billy Budd,
opera in two acts with prologue and epilogue
Billy Budd................... Jacques Imbrailo
Captain Vere................ Mark Padmore
John Claggart............... Brindley Sherratt
Mr Redburn................. Stephen Gadd
Mr Flint........................ David Soar
Lieutenant Ratcliffe.... Darren Jeffery
Red Whiskers.............. Alasdair Elliott
Donald......................... John Moore
Dansker........................ Jeremy White
Novice......................... Peter Gijsbertsen
Squeak......................... Colin Judson
Glyndebourne Festival Chorus, London Phil/Andrew Davis
(recorded in the Royal Albert Hall, London by the BBC)

COMPOSER
WORKS
BACKGROUND (the novel by Melville)
SYNOPSIS

Billy Budd, the stuttering sailor, is hanged for murder, having killed the ship's master-at-arms (the naval policeman) under severe provocation. Not a happy tale to sing a chanty/shanty about while pulling on the ropes; and that rope-whip known as the cat with nine tails makes an early appearance. Justice has to be harsh and swift, otherwise mutiny will break out; actually, in this case, if the hero had not accepted the sentence of his revered Captain Vere ("Starry Vere, God bless you!"), the lads would have revolted; they had heard about the French revolution and had a hankering for a bit of liberty, equality, and fraternity; but the guillotine was slaughtering multitudes under the new democracy.
A nice piece of irony has Billy being forcefully recruited from a merchant vessel to a warship, presumably not receiving a royal shilling for his trouble, but he happily bids farewell to the Rights-o'-Man, not expecting the bullying he will receive.
Peter Pears (the first Peter Grimes) was the original Captain Vere (Billy Budd was a bit low for him, and too high for Britten's choice, Geraint Evans, who moved down to Sailing Master Flint, where Jonathan Lemalu is now).
Have you noticed that there is not a woman in sight on the good ship Indomitable? There are no female stowaways, and none of the singers are counter-tenors, but there is a quartet of boys as midshipmen.
The libretto was put together by E. M. Forster (the author who took a passage to India) and Eric Crozier, on the basis of a some posthumous papers of Herman Melville, presumably thrown up by Moby Dick, wrapped in ambergris.
I have a box-set of the first recording (1968), conducted by Ben himself, which has Peter Glossop in the title role, and Peter Pears as Edward Fairfax Vere, naturally, while Owen Brannigan sang old Dansker (instead of Inia Te Wiata).
Another NZ connection is reported by Don Bewley, who said: I heard Keith Lewis sing very sensitively the part of Captain Vere, in Venice one Sunday afternoon in 2000 in the big tent that housed the La Fenice company while their theatre was being rebuilt.

Sunday 14th of December 2008
Captain Vere................. Ian Bostridge
Billy Budd..................... Nathan Gunn
Claggart........................ Gidon Saks
Redburn........................ Neal Davies
Flint.............................. Jonathan Lemalu
Ratcliffe......................... Matthew Rose
Red Whiskers............... Alasdair Elliot
Donald.......................... Matthew Best
Novice.......................... Andrew Kennedy
Squeak......................... Andrew Tortise
Bosun........................... Mark Stone
First Mate..................... Adam Green
LSO St Luke's Youth Choir, London Symphony Chorus & Orch
Daniel Harding (Virgin 5 19039)
One point of interest in this recording is the presence of Jonathan Lemalu as Flint. In the first performance of the opera, in 1951, at the Royal Opera House in London, conducted by the composer himself, Inia Te Wiata was Dansker. In his career, baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes (in 2008, seen in cinemas in Peter Grimes) has taken the part of Billy Budd.