Billy Budd, Op. 50

Composer: Britten, Benjamin

Librettist/Text Author: Crozier, Eric

Librettist/Text Author: Forster, E.M.

Conductor: Bolton, Ivor

Orchestra: Madrid Teatro Real Orchestra

Chorus: Madrid Teatro Real Chorus

Chorus Master: Maspero, Andres

Chorus: Pequenos Cantores de la Jorcam

Chorus Master: Maspero, Andres

Billy Budd: Imbrailo, Jacques

Donald: Rock, Duncan

Edward Fairfax Vere: Spence, Toby

John Claggart: Sherratt, Brindley

Lieutenant Ratcliffe: Jurgens, Torben

Mr. Flint: Soar, David

Mr. Redburn: Oliemans, Thomas

Red Whiskers: Gillet, Christopher

Set Designer: Levine, Michael

Costume Designer: Obolensky, Chloe

Lighting Designer: Kalman, Jean

Choreographer: Brandstrup, Kim

Stage Director: Warner, Deborah

Television Director: Cuvillier, Jeremie

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Date of Production: 14-09-2017

Venue: Teatro Real, Madrid

Playing Time: 02:55:12

Catalogue Number: BAC154

UPC: 3760115301542

Synopsis

Billy Budd, Op. 50

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800 liters of water, two sails, thirty pulleys, sixty hammocks: for the Bicentenary of the Teatro Real of Madrid, Deborah Warner coined a colossal production of Benjamin Britten's Billy Budd. A critically-acclaimed performance, praised for its depth and intelligence.

'Oh, what have I done?' Captain Edward Fairfax Vere, former commander of the H.M.S. Indomitable asks himself with horror at the beginning of the opera, before recounting the tragic events that took place aboard his ship in 1797. The story revolves around a young model sailor, Billy Budd, and John Claggart, the unscrupulous master-at-arms obsessed and crazed by Billy's angelic beauty; and follows the characters in their fall down to the most infernal depths of perversion and psychosis, exploring the themes of innocence, culpability, individual responsibility and justice. In this ambiguous and symbolic tale, drawn from Herman Melville's last masterpiece, the composer Benjamin Britten, who returns for the occasion to symphonic opera and its infinite possibilities, unsettles and disturbs us by revealing the complexity and universality of human experience. Far from writing the characters as allegories of Good and Evil, the opera shows us instead the remorseless logic followed by the surge of one's darkest desires. But in this opera dominated by masculinity, Deborah Warner goes beyond the story of violence, jealousy and hatred and chooses to focus instead on the collateral beauty produced by comradeship, friendship and forgiveness.

Baritone Jacques Imbrailo, who knows the title role perfectly, delivers a stunning rendition of the young sailor's part, while British singers Toby Spence and Brindley Sherratt provide solid interpretations of Captain 'Starry' Vere and of John Claggart. In the pit, Ivor Bolton masterfully deploys, along with the Orchestra of the Teatro Real, all the energy and power of Britten's fifth opera. A now iconic production, co-produced by the Opera of Rome and the Royal Opera House.