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Britten: Billy Budd

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I feel I should write a review after going through this emotionally loaded production, but there is so much to it that I find myself at a loss for words.

"Billy Budd" was not all that well received when it first appeared but many now consider it Britten's best, "Peter Grimes" included. Perhaps it needed to be compressed from the original 4 act opera to the 2 act one that is now performed. Certainly it is now a very tight opera that does not seem to have any superfluous bits.

This was recorded in 1966 in a BBC studio wherein there was built an accurate set giving the illusion of a fully-manned man-of-war. The action takes place within this enclosed claustrophobic world of which the captain is king and feels he must must allow the laws to be enforced. The orchestra (excellent) played on an adjacent stage while the filmed action took place on the set. The actor/singers were most appropriately cast and were all wonderful.

The camera work is superb; and with cutting and camera placements illustrates the characters and the moral problems much more clearly than would be experienced by a theatre audience. It feels as though the viewer is there and participating emotionally. I suspect that the fact that it is in black and white, and not coloured, helps to emphasise the dilemmas that are presented.

The original recording has been painstakingly remastered. The picture is very clear; and the sound, albeit mono, is surprisingly good.

I will not get into a discussion of the issues raised by Britten and his librettists. There is certainly a lot to think about and discuss. I hope that those of you who read this review and buy the DVD will enjoy doing so.

If you admire the works of Benjamin Britten, this is a must buy. If you are open to being turned on to the works of Benjamin Britten, you cannot do better than start with this production.

I am not a great fan of filmed opera. Nor am I a great fan of Britten's operas. They can be a moving experience since he has a good eye for a great story but his music leaves me cold. The best I can say for it is that is interesting. But this performance, as a music drama, is riveting. Everything comes together to create a wonderful realization of Melvile's story. One of the great treats was seeing early work by singers who would become prominant on the English opera scene...including a few lines sung by a pre-bearded Ben Luxon. Wonderfully conducted by Makerras, this DVD puts the more recent Glyndebourn production in the shade.

Britten: Billy Budd This recording was originally made in 1966 on the BBC. It has been carefully reconstituted in B&W and mono. Color and stereo would be nice, but the overall quality is such that their absence is not important. Personally I believe the B&W format improves the darkness of the opera. I highly recommend.

I love Britten's music. Not surprisingly I have heard most of "Britten conducts / plays Britten", conveniently packed in 4 boxes: Britten Conducts Britten 1, Britten Conducts Britten 2, Britten Conducts Britten: Operas 1 Britten Conducts Britten: Operas 2, and the CD Britten: The Canticles 1-5, etc., as well as his other works. Even though the ranking is a silly business, Billy Budd, for me, is a supreme example of Britten's art, second perhaps only to his Peter Grimes in the opera category. It was unjustly ignored outside the U.K. until recently. I believe this superb production will help bring to it the wider audience and the long-overdue recognition.

In a very broad sense, Britten's compositional model resembles that of a Baroque master. His musical language was set early on and it only developed and evolved very gradually. There was never a dramatic turn in his language. (Unlike the "Chameleon" Igor Stravinsky, for example.) The language and sound are so consistent that one can hear a few bars and tell it's by Britten and Britten alone. His enormous output with various degrees of perfection also makes him stand out among the twentieth century composers and reminds us of the Baroque (and pre-Beethoven classical) composers. For example, he has written 17 stage works alone, with at least 9 of them full-scaled operas. They were always written with specific singers in mind (at least partially) and produced soon after their completion.

A little bit of background might help here. Billy Budd, his sixth opera if you count "The Little Sweep" as one, was originally composed during 1950-1951. At that time, he was already a celebrated figure due to the great success of Peter Grimes, premiered in 1945 at Sadler's Wells. Britten's language at that time was already fully developed, and his youthful exuberance, originality and melodic inventiveness were apparent in this work. However, unlike Grimes, the first public performance in 1951, conducted by the composer himself, was not a popular or critical success. In anticipation of a BBC broadcast in 1960, Britten revised the opera substantially, tightened the structure and compressed it into 2 act. It is this revised 2-act version which is recorded here.

The story of Billy Budd is, in a very broad sense, one of innocence and evil, as originally conceived by Hermann Melville. It is adapted to an operatic format effectively by Foster and Crozier. Since opera and literature are two different genres, certain 'transformations' are absolutely necessary. In the end, it lost some 'literary' subtleties, only to gain in 'theatrical' drama. Britten's music creates declamatory contours and musical effects which fit the libretto like hand and glove. Composed merely 5 years after Peter Grimes, the opera shares similar musical idioms and dramaturgy. If you adore Grimes, most likely you will like Budd as well.(*1)

This BBC Television's studio production, directed in 1966 by Basil Coleman, Britten's long term collaborator, is extremely effective. The cast, hand-picked by the composer, consists of the top-tiered British singers at the time.(*2) At the helm was then young Charles Mackerras, leading LSO, with Britten sitting in and giving advices. This TV production evolves againt the background of a warship, vividly reconstructed in studio. Glossop's Billy Budd and Langdon's Claggart deserve special mention even among this distinguished cast.(*3) But the ultimate hero is Peter Pears' Captain Vere. He embodies the character so memorably and convincingly; he *is* Captain Vere!

Technically, the video is black and white and the sound is mono. However they have been carefully remastered and the presentation is excellent.

Before you hurry to get this DVD, though, you ought to consider the splendidly inexpensive set Britten - Pears collection. For just a little bit more than the price of this DVD, you will get 6(!) DVDs, which my friend Giodano Bruno(*) has reviewed separately.

Without a moment's hesitation, this DVD and especially the Britten - Pears collection get my 5-STAR RECOMMENDATION.

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(*1) For another perspective from a redoubtable musician reviewer, please check out Giodano Bruno's review. His review is always worth your attention even when your opinion differs from his.

(*2) The liner note, which details the "2 studio" system and other things pertinent to this production, is a must-read!

(*3) Britten was entertaining the idea of inviting his favorite baritone Fischer-Dieskau for the title role. I wish he did!! However, Peter Glossop's performance, both vocally and theatrically, is extremely convincing and satisfactory.

The re-mastering of the original BBC production of this opera by Benjamin Britten is a real treat with Peter Pears. The story, adapted from Melville by E.M. Forster and Eric Crozier is a fascinating tale about the evilness of human justice on a ship under the Acts of War and other regulations having to do with court-martialing anyone for any misdemeanor in war time on a man-of-war. Falsely accused by his superior officer, the foundling and volunteer in the royal service against the French in 1797 Billy Budd is unable to defend himself with words because he is silenced by a fit of stuttering. So he hits the accuser and kills him. But that accuser is his superior officer, hence he deserves death for hitting his superior officer and committing murder. He has to be hanged twice but they will reduce it to once. The point is not that miscarriage of justice, but the all-male environment that creates tensions and stress. The said superior officer is "down on" Billy Budd, in other words attracted by him sexually, which he cannot accept and hence he decides to have him pay for that unmanly attraction of his. But Billy Budd is liked by everyone and the captain is himself attracted to that young and handsome foundling. This time we cannot say the attraction is sexual but the attraction is a deep emotion that makes the captain like Billy Budd and vice versa Billy Budd like the captain. In an all-male environment all kinds of distortions can occur in the relationships among the men in this closed environment that the ship is. But that's not what Benjamin Britten tries to show. He tries to show the dilemma in which the captain was when the events took place. He had to stick to what he had seen and avoid what he may have sensed or felt at the time. He then stuck to his testimony that meant two death penalties. But in his old age, that captain acknowledges the idea that he could have saved Billy Budd because he had the power to pardon the convicted man, and even before he could have testified about the loyalty of Billy Budd, hence the accidental and provoked assault on Billy Budd's superior officer. But he didn't and thus he is to be tried by another court, a divine court in which he believes. But the following episode is the main moment of that story. Just before being hanged and released to the deep sea, Billy Budd actually forgives the captain and that saves the captain's soul, but then he could have pardoned on the spot and he did not do it, and that does not save his soul. That's the story of a sea episode in which a captain endorses a miscarriage of justice just to keep his liking for the accused secret in an all-male environment. It is very similar to Peter Grimes, except that in Peter Grimes the young apprentices die due to accidents, and yet a retired captain tells Peter Grimes to go at sea and sink himself in his boat and he does it. Miscarriage of justice again. But it is an opera, so what is so musical in this story. The music and the singing are systematically dramatic and somber like hell. Instruments often run one against the others, creating conflictual points even at times hiatuses and that gives to the words and the images since it is a visual show a tremendous depth. But there are some moments when this depth becomes a tremendous elevation. Before his execution Billy Budd is visited by an older sailor who brings him a final drink and a biscuit. That scene is full of emotion and Billy Budd concludes his making his peace with the whole world and the injustice he is going to suffer with a final sentence that reads like that when sung: "That's all, all, all, and that's enough, that's enough, that's enough. This is a marvelous direct allusion to Solomon's trial or wisdom (due to the two repetitive triplets in the sentence) but it shows that the captain was the one who was confronted to a decision that could be compared to Solomon's decision: Billy Budd is guilty twice and he is going to die, but this time the captain did not react like the real mother did, accepting to lose her child for it to live, the captain did not accept to make public his liking for Billy Budd in order to enable him to live. And that's what is wrong with human justice: it is blind, deaf and mute: it does not see, does not hear and does not say the truth. The music that accompanies the gathering of all the men and the arrival of Billy Budd for his execution is a real gem and diamond in the whole opera with rolling drums from time to time, with whining horns and mocking flutes that create a fake environment to introduce a fake sham of justice that is a real execution nevertheless. And the forgiving declaration of Billy Budd after the reading of the sentence "Captain Vere, God Bless you" shines like a dawning sun in that visual scene of an execution you never see except through the eyes and movements of those who look at it.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Créteil, CEGID

This is a rare recording and a difficult one to find. It arrived in excellent condition and has titles which are necessary, even though the opera is in English. It was written for Peter Pears, who stars in it.

I wish I could like this opera more than I do. There's plenty to like, chiefly the vivid sonorous orchestral music, and there's plenty specifically to like about this historical production as a black-and-white film for TV. If it were a tad more good-natured, it could float with HMS Pinafore, and if it were a touch more physical, it might remind people of the great black-and-white nautical adventure films, Mutiny on the Bounty, Moby Dick with Gregory Peck as Ahab. But it's an opera .... a widely revered modern opera by Britain's most revered modern composer ... and for some people at least the whole 'plausibility' of modern opera perhaps hinges on the 'validity' of this exemplar. And I'm uncomfortable with that. I don't find the fundamental goal of opera to be met in Billy Budd, the synthesis of music and drama, in a manner that's both intellectually and aesthetically satisfying.

The biggest problems are in the libretto, which was written by E.M. Forster and Eric Crozier for the premiere on stage in 1951. From such fine writers, the language seems truly pedestrian at best, bombastic and bathetic at worst. Of course, it's part of the rubric of opera, from Monteverdi to modernity, that the music should inhabit the words, should be subordinated to the words in affect, should be 'intelligible' to the sensibilities of the listener. Well, since this opera is in English, and since Britten eschews any sort of fantastical cantilena, the words are indeed intelligible. And they're flat-out silly some of the time, insipid most of the time, boring all of the time. One hears a lot of beef-and-kidney British chauvinism being sung dourly; yes, the scenario is set in 1797, but the anti-Napoleonic francophobic bombast must have sounded perfunctory and mildly distasteful even in 1951. But chiefly the ponderous musical soliloquys just sound puerile. Captain Vere is a stuffy old ramrod, and a moral coward in this portrayal who justifies his cowardice with the sententious rhetoric of Christian redemption and reward. His officers are a dotty chorus of gentlemen boot-polishers. The sailors, both while they're waxing ardent and waning mutinous, simply sound like music-hall clowns. By the way, the singers and choristers of this 1966 London filming could have used some serious training in movement; their 'dancing' is lead-footed, and their climbing of the rigging -- even Billy Budd's -- is laughably awkward.

The theme of Christian redemption, of an afterlife with rewards, is a troublesome interpolation into the dark, morally ambiguous, subtle novella Billy Budd by Hermann Melville. If I didn't know the Melville story so well, perhaps I'd be less uncomfortable with the bowdlerization of it in the Forster/Crozier libretto. The opera squeezes all the ambivalence and existential anguish out of the story and props it up as a Manichean struggle between pure evil and pure goodness. The handsome willing lad, Billy Budd, is too good to survive on a sullied post-lapsarian Earth. The bullish master-at-arms, Claggart, is as resolute as Milton's Satan in plotting to destroy Goodness. Basso Michael Langdon sings the role of Claggart so mephitically that he comes the closest of the whole cast to making Britten's music plausible as such, and tenor Peter Glossop looks, acts, and sings the role of Billy Budd as convincingly as the lyrics allow.

With all due apologies, I don't find Britten's declamatory vocal lines in this opera, or in 'Owen Wingrave,' sufficiently interesting or musically engaging. His occasional quirky ornaments, intended I'm sure as points of emphasis, merely sound arbitrary. Would a different production, on stage, with a different cast, rescue this opera from banality? I have my doubts.