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OPERA REVIEW
September 26, 2004
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By Robert Commanday
Britten's Billy Budd, one of the more consistently successful operas of the late 20th century, came off well again Sunday in the production, new here, by the San Francisco Opera. The work, in its musical and dramatic clarity, always seems to elicit performances of such quality as this and to interact directly with audiences.
The production, visually simpler, more stark than its more realistic predecessor here (1978 and 1985), kept the dramatic focus on the elemental issue. This concentration, the genius of Herman Melville's novella, is preserved by E.M. Forster and Eric Crozier in their libretto, which is a fair rendering of the original story. The opera would be more properly entitled “Captain Vere,” for Edward Fairfax Vere, captain of the H.M.S. Indomitable, is the true central character. His conflict, the agony over the “necessity” to convict and hang the fated, morally innocent Budd, is the central crisis. The two protagonists playing out the tragedy are each more opposed forces — unalloyed evil pitted against beauty, innocence and goodness — than they are human characters driven by a complex of experiences and motivations.
As Vere, Kim Begley had the clarion bright, deep-carrying tenor and the dramatic presence to be its central pillar. In this his SF Opera debut, the Royal Opera tenor demonstrated why his international career is so impressive.
He showed Vere's human complexity. He's a philosophically inclined loner, able both to respond to and value Budd in his ebullient openness and to recognize the dark malevolence of the Master-at-Arms, John Claggart. Begley made convincing the weight of Vere's burdens, the apprehensions about his command, his torments serving as witness in Billy's trial. As Budd goes to his death, he blesses the captain who could have saved him, and thus brings him redemption. With that, Forster and Britten changed the emphasis in the novel, Melville having been much harder on Vere. The opera opens with Vere, old and retired, recalling the summer of 1797 in war time, when the fleet feared mutiny, and it ends on old Vere again, in epilog, recalling his being pardoned by Billy.
Nathan Gunn (Billy Budd) Photos by Larry Merkle Nathan Gunn (last year's Barber of Seville Figaro here) embodied everything “wonderful” Billy must be: handsome, a boy of buoyant, irrepressible spirits, infectiously attractive, a charming, childishly innocent, golden-hearted boy. As soon as he comes on board, newly seized from a merchant vessel and “pressed” into man-o'war service, it is believable that he would captivate all hands. His singing, in a warm baritone, was easily expressive, melodious, crucially so in the most poignant and memorable scene, “Billy in the Darbies.” There he lies in handcuffs awaiting death in the morning, dreamily fantasizing. Britten planted the music earlier in the opera when Billy sings some of it in half sleep, “It's dreaming I am.” The other powerful solo scene was that of Claggart, recognizing his own hell as he is driven to destroy this boy, “O beauty, o handsomeness, goodness.” It's a terrible Iago-like monolog. Philip Ens, a Canadian bass, Basilio here last year, had the exactly-right dark sound that cast an enveloping shadow, as did his skulking presence and unrelieved animosity. The element of homosexuality readily inferred in Claggart's attraction to and fear of Budd, and possibly in Vere's attitude as well, was not made explicit by the director Sabine Hartmannshenn, and needn't be. Like much of the vocal writing, and unlike the single melodious “Darbies” piece, Claggart's monolog is lirico-dramatic-recitative. The voice line follows the text's rhythm and builds phrase shapes, while the musical continuity derives from the harmonic design in the accompaniment. Britten's style in this is much like that of Peter Grimes, the textures harmonic and kept open, the harmonies mildly dissonant, rhythm driven by the text, and orchestration expertly shaped to produce a Britten sound.
There was musical energy in two duets building to the opera's denouement — Vere refusing Claggart's (false) charges against Budd, and Vere continuing to denounce Claggart as Budd babbles on with guileless enthusiasm about serving the captain. Following this, Vere has Claggart make his accusations, and Budd, impaired by his stammer and hopelessly pent-up, kills Claggart with one blow of the fist. Next, the horrified Vere sings of the terrible role he now faces. Still, as the commanding officer, although also witness at the drumhead court martial, he must recommend the guilty verdict and mandatory penalty to the three officers, also in conflict. The large cast was excellent: Theodore Baerg (1st Lt.), Philip Skinner (Mr. Ratcliffe), Gregory Stapp (Billy's pal, old Dansker), John Duykers, (Red Whiskers), Harold Gray Meers (a novice), Joshua Bloom, Ricardo Herrera and Thomas Glenn, ( Adler Fellows — 1st and 2nd Mates, Maintop), Scott Scully (Squeak), Troy Cook (sailing master Flint), and Daniel Okulitch, Mel Ulrich, Lucas Meachem, William Pickersgill, Ellis Briery. The choruses are solid and sweeping as sailors' choruses would be. Britten's feeling for the male choral sound is strong, unerring. Ian Robertson's Opera Chorus men sang splendidly and for them, as everywhere in the opera, the ensemble was tight. Donald Runnicles was at his best, conducting a performance as sure in tempos, continuity, crispness and balance as could be wanted, and the orchestra played beautifully.
The production is a stylized design by Wolfgang Gussman, originating with the Vienna State Opera in 2001. Everything is played on a severe open stage, with raked forestage (ship's deck), the suggestion of a prow and two large hatches upstage. A “cabin wall” is drawn across to reduce the stage for the captain's cabin, and large black panels to create the “berth-deck.” Hartsmannhenn managed the action well, but not the sailors' ship-handling activities, about which she seems to know nothing, the mariners moving in mass or mob formation. Neither did their medium blue working garb look like British man o'war dress, and Budd, to set him off in the crowd, was kept in the dress whites he first came aboard in. A director's liberty, I suppose. All in all, this was an excellent realization of a sure-fire opera. I thought I was going to miss the more realistic, ship-like setting of the previous production — the masts, the gun ports and cannon, an actual quarterdeck for the officers — but the bare essentials of this design worked well enough.
(Robert P. Commanday, the editor of San Francisco Classical Voice, was the music critic of The San Francisco Chronicle, 1965-93, and before that a conductor and lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley.)
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Kim Begley (Edward Fairfax Vere)