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Billy Budd
|
Composer |
Benjamin Britten |
|
Librettist |
EM Forster and Eric Crozier after Herman Melville’s unfinished story. |
|
Venue and Dates |
Vienna State Opera 27, 30 October, 2 November 2005 |
|
Conductor |
Graeme Jenkins |
|
Director |
Willy Decker |
|
Production |
Wolfgang Gussmann (sets) |
|
Performers |
Billy Budd : Simon Keenlyside Edward Fairfax Vere : Michael Roider Claggart : Kurt Rydl Mr. Redburn : Peter Weber Mr. Flint : Wolfgang Bankl Mr. Ratcliffe : In-Sung Sim Dansker : Alfred Šramek Red Whiskers : John Dickie Donald : Marcus Pelz Novice : Benedikt Kobel Squeak: Cosmin Ifrim Maintop: Peter Jelosits Bosun : Janusz Monarcha First Mate : Eijiro Kai Second Mate : Johannes Wiedecke Novice’s Friend : Hans-Peter Kammerer Arthur Jones : Mario Steller Midshipmen : Gregorianische Choralschola der Wiener Hofburgkapelle Chorus and Orchestra of the Vienna State Opera |
What the critics say
Click here to read what Ursula Turecek thought of this production
Markus Hennerfeind for Wiener Zeitung, 29 October 2005.
Ein Adonis auf hoher See
http://www.wienerzeitung.at/DesktopDefault.aspx?TabID=3895&Alias=wzo
Translated by Uschi Turecek.
Adonis on the high seas
After 22 performances of Britten's "Billy Budd" after all we know: Willy Decker's feasible production in Wolfgang Gussmann's stage design is brilliantly suitable for the repertory business. The experienced singer-actor may succeed trouble-free without any additional intellectual superstructure, there are no demanding constructs of ideas in his way. This allowed Billy Budd alias Simon Keenlyside, nowadays arguably unequalled in this role, to act out his youthful-innocent role model without restraint: As a likable, sportive Adonis with a sustainable and beautifully timbred voice and excellent diction he was as a matter of course the centre of the performance. With regard to his acting Michael Roider was not at all inferior to him, he sang without reserve above his natural limits and communicated in every moment education, authority and the instinctive intelligence of his character. Kurt Rydl's Claggart suffered from his inordinate singing and therefore remained too unvariedly black-bassy as the villain. Among the rest of the company mainly Alfred Sramek as old sea dog Dankser outstood alongside Peter Weber, Wolfgang Bankl and Marcus Pelz....
Kurier (29. 10. 2005)
4 star rating
"Simon Keenlyside is an adorable Billy Budd"
Kronen-Zeitung, 29 October 2005.
Translated by Ursula Turecek
Triumph for Britten
The State Opera takes Willy Decker's production of Britten's "Billy Budd" into the repertoire again: Again a triumph - for the ravishing singer-actor of Billy, Simon Keenlyside, but also for the Englishman Graeme Jenkins at the rostrum who enhances Britten's ingenious score with the musicians to terrific vehemence.
Jenkins, principal conductor in Dallas, challenges the brass and percussion with impressive accuracy. Britten's score twinkles in all facets.
On stage, Simon Keenlyside succeeds in interpreting an ideal Billy, the attractive, enthused sailor who is loved by all, who lapses into stammering when stressed out....
Enthusiasm in the audience after this great evening at the State Opera....
Dominik Troger, 30 October 2005
http://www.operinwien.at/werkverz/britten/abilly4.htm
Translated by Ursula Turecek
..Strong repertoire
All hands pull at one rope, this can make things move. “Starry Vere” sails the State Opera waters again and fails to lay down the law in Billy Budd’s case once more.
How willingly the spectator would catch the spokes of Fortune’s wheel: “Say something, Captain Vere, don’t hide behind the Articles of War and stand by your feelings! Billy Budd has charmed you, admit it at last, you are in love!” But Vere wavers, sinks into self-despair, takes comfort in lofty symbolism – nevertheless Good has defeated Evil, even when it will swing from the yardarm a few hours later.
The Billy Budd-performances at the State Opera in the past were at a high and very high level, and four and a half years after the first night nothing has changed. A strong achievement of company and choir and distinctive singers in the three main parts still produce much tension; the conductors always provided an easily steerable course that swept away the audience.
This time Simon Keenlyside sang Billy Budd – and used the whole repertoire of vocal expression, from the youthful ardent sailor, abruptly interspersed with nightmarish fits of stammers, to the heartfelt farewell sung with masculine-soft voice. Billy Budd, the Good and Pure, he goes to meet his end with head most erect.
Michael Roider surpasses himself reliably with Captain Vere. For example he creates this difficult character in the decisive court scene with tantalising painfullness. He lapses into some sort of neurotic rigour, it would seem that Billy Budd’s stammer had taken possession of him. In Vere it’s the soul that stammers – and he saves himself with the Articles of War.
Kurt Rydl is a straightforward, brutal master-at-arms who doesn’t trouble much. The evil outcrops in a more direct manifestation here, basically without diabolical trickiness. This goes with the character of the voice.
Graeme Jenkins made the orchestra play with a dryish sound but alltogether he realised the work with considerable tension and much feeling in the end.
The house could have done with some more visitors but the atmosphere at the end was most disposed for applause with many cheers. There were many Britten-fans present. (This review refers to the second performance of the current series.)
Donald Rosenberg, November 5, 2005
“In many ways, the Staatsoper's "Billy Budd" is the most affecting of the recent crop. Britten's adaptation of the Hermann Melville novel probes issues of good and evil with enormous humanity, its score an amalgam of seafaring buoyancy and introspective luminosity, lucidly shaped here by Graeme Jenkins, music director of Dallas Opera. Michael Roider conveyed the paradoxes of Capt. Vere with urgent elegance, and Kurt Rydl was the epitome of moral degradation as Claggart. But the star was Simon Keenlyside, whose gloriously sung Billy Budd had an ideal blend of virility and vulnerability.“
“Clevelanders will hear the British baritone as Ford in the Cleveland Orchestra's concert performances of Verdi's "Falstaff" in June.“
