Santa Fe Opera Trip, August 2008
Day One - 8/11/2008 - Anne Berre Reporting
Day Two - 8/12/2008 - Bob Holloway Reporting
Day Three - 8/13/2008 - Anne Berre Reporting
Day Four - 8/14/2008 - Anne Berre Reporting
Day Five - 8/15/2008 - Bob Holloway Reporting
Billy Budd was written by Benjamin Britten, who wrote one of my favorite choral pieces, A Ceremony of Carols. The music does not disappoint. It is of course the story given us by Herman Melville and takes place on the high seas, when the British and the French were at war. Billy is a merchant seaman on a ship called Rights of Man, and when it is stopped by Indomitable, a British warship, he is impressed into service.
Billy is young and beautiful—physically and spiritually. He is admired by the men and fast tracked for promotion by the widely respected captain, one Edward Fairfax Vere. He has an enemy, a dark element aboard this allegorical vessel, the evil John Claggart, Master-at-Arms. Claggart is all paranoia and self-aggrandizement. He sees Billy as a threat to his power, and decides to cast him in the role of a threat to the security of the enterprise. He justifies contriving a great lie about Billy—that Billy has tried to recruit a young sailor as a mutineer.
Captain Vere, taken aback, but a man of duty, summons Billy to answer the charges. Billy, a rocket of confidence and purpose, expects a promotion, but instead hears Claggart's tale. When asked to answer, Billy is unable. He is a stutterer. In his mute fury, he lashes out at Claggart. Claggart falls dead.
After the inevitable verdict, guilty, and the inevitable penalty, death, Billy awaits his fate and his soliloquy is the high point of the drama. He sees his fate as right and proper, and sees that Vere's future, and by implication humanity's future, is tied to his punishment.
The next morning he climbs to the yardarm from which he will hang with vigor and grace. Soon we see the silhouette of his lifelessness against the billowing sail.
The story has been said to be the story of Christ, and I first saw this in it, but I don't now. He is not sacrificed for our sins. Billy is a tragic figure in the traditional sense, which is to say he has a flaw. On the other hand, he transcends the flaw. After killing Claggart, he accepts his fate, and embraces his destiny.
You must understand that I have no experience with the opera form, but I loved this one. The work is wonderful, and the performers, the visualization, the orchestral performance were wonderful to my senses. A wonderful climax to the Santa Fe trip and the experience.