Few people
would rate Billy Budd as their
favourite Britten opera. Yet this recording
could change things, establishing it
as perhaps the most personally revealing
of all Britten’s operas, and orchestrally
one of the finest. This recording is
a turning point. Often, performances
have been assessed on the assumption
that this is a conventional sailor story,
but this is very different. Daniel Harding
goes back to the score and rethinks
it in an altogether new light. This
is an essential version for anyone seriously
interested in understanding Britten
on a deeper level. It makes a compelling
case for Billy Budd
as symphony,
an orchestral work that uses voices
to extend its impact, not "opera" in
the usual sense of singers acting out
against a non-vocal backdrop.
Suddenly,
Billy Budd is revealed as extremely
sophisticated musical writing, where
the real action is hidden in the orchestration,
not what's happening with the actors.
Captain Vere's dilemma "is" the central
and absolute drama of the entire piece.
"My life's broken. It's not his trial,
it's mine, mine. It is I whom the Devil
awaits". This isn’t about life at sea,
or even about Billy, but about difficult
ethical choices. Even in Peter Grimes,
Britten disguises his most intimate
thoughts with plot devices like Ellen
Orford and the mob of fisher-folk. On
board this warship, all non-essentials
are stripped bare. Billy Budd is
as starkly potent as a Greek tragedy.
It’s
significant that this opera was written
during the McCarthy era with its hysterical
witch-hunts. Britten was no fool. It
is significant how much he makes of
the political paranoia of 1797, for
it is pertinent to the "danger" the
ship and its crew are in. "The
Rights o’ Man" is in fact the name
of Billy’s last ship, but the officers
are terrified of mutiny, of change in
any form. The officers, Mr Flint and
Mr Redburn sing "Don’t like the
French … their hoppity skippety ways
... those those damned mounseurs".
Britten sets the lines as primitive
banter, for this the bigoted, ignorant
mentality that lets Claggart types dominate.
Captain Vere on the other hand, hears
the men singing happily below decks
and knows they don’t pose any threat.
Given
the background, it’s hardly surprising
that the composer was emotionally reticent.
He knew it could be dangerous to be
too open, unsafe to be candid. Thus
the significance of Billy‘s stammer.
When he could save himself by explaining
clearly, Billy collapses into incoherence.
Similarly, Captain Vere pulls back from
the brink when he could have intervened,
another link between himself and Billy,
both unable to express the unspeakable
in words, like Britten himself
Therefore,
Harding’s emphasis on the orchestra
is thus psychologically as well as musically
astute. The orchestra speaks what Vere
and Billy can’t. Here the ocean is a
protagonist, every bit as much as the
singing roles. Indeed, against the wild
forces of nature, the 'Indomitable'
isn’t indomitable; it’s vulnerable,
and can be destroyed by fate as capriciously
as Billy himself is destroyed. Through
the orchestra, the ocean takes centre-stage,
turbulent and intense. Huge crescendos
build up like mighty waves, but even
more impressive is the undertow of dark,
murmuring sound that surges ever forwards.
Above this, currents flow diagonally
across the orchestra, first violins
flowing to brass and basses and back,
just as ships lurch back and forth.
You could get seasick if you focused
too hard, but that is the point, for
Britten is showing that the "floating
world" aboard ship is unsteady,
far removed from the certainties of
dry land. Just like the enveloping mists,
all points of moral reference are hidden.
"Lost in the infinite sea",
sings Captain Vere, a refrain that recurs
repeatedly, in voice and in the orchestra.
This ship is in full sail - you can
feel the wind and see the open horizon.
This is important to the narrative,
because it reflects the sense that supernatural
forces are propelling Billy and Captain
Vere inevitably towards their fate.
More subtly though, this also expresses
something about why Billy loves being
up high in the foretop, riding the rigging,
high up on the mast. He’s such a free
spirit that even death cannot extinguish
him. That’s why, perhaps, he moves ahead,
always forward, instead of dwelling
on past sorrows. "No more looking
down from the heights to the depths!"
he sings - "I’ve sighted a sail
in the storm … I see where she’s bound
for."
It's not for nothing
that Britten starts the opera with Vere
reflecting on the past and ends with
him being liberated, at last understanding
what Billy meant.
Because
this performance focuses on the moral
dilemma that is at the heart of the
opera, it renders irrelevant traditional
assumptions about characterisation.
Captain Vere isn’t supposed to be a
brutish salty dog. Britten’s writing
for the part is in an altogether more
rarefied stratosphere from the other
parts. Right from the beginning, Britten
has him quoting classical literature:
he is an educated, sensitive intellectual
who understands things beyond the immediate
present. He "is" Britten,
not one of the masses. The men don’t
call their Captain "Starry Vere"
for nothing. He has his head in the
clouds, among the stars, just as Billy
is happiest at the top of the mast,
above the decks. Yet that’s exactly
why the men love him and respect him
so much. He represents another way of
being that alternative to the gung-ho
butchness of the other officers who
automatically assume the worst of the
men and are taken in by Claggart’s dishonesty.
Bostridge’s Vere is therefore much closer
to the true "Britten" persona
than portrayals that assume a Captain
must be a naval John Wayne. The men
trust him to lead them in battle because
they know he has higher interests at
heart.
The
men love Billy, too, because he’s inherently
good and idealistic: Claggart takes
an instant hatred to him because he’s
a complete reversal of the bullying,
lying, venality Claggart has built his
life around. At first, I found Nathan
Gunn’s voice too light after Thomas
Allen, for example. Yet, as the significance
of this profound reassessment of the
opera became clear, Gunn’s interpretation
made complete sense. Billy isn’t a hero
in the usual sense, he’s the spirit
of freedom and purity the Claggarts
of this world can never understand.
Thus he doesn’t fear death. He cannot
be conquered. Claggart dies after a
single blow, but Billy defeats Death
itself. The song, "Through the
port comes moonshine astray" is
transcendently beautiful, for Billy
is focused on something infinitely greater
than mortality, just as Vere is focused
on the stars.
Gunn
reveals Billy as yet another of Britten’s
innocents whom Fate must corrupt. This
is a theme so central to Britten’s whole
view of the world. In Billy Budd
he comes closer than usual in confronting
his own experiences and actions. So
ponder the final scene where Captain
Vere looks back on his past and his
role in Billy’s death. Why has it tortured
him for so many years even though he
knew at the time Billy had forgiven
him? Perhaps Vere at last realises that
the innocent cannot survive untouched
in this world, and that, ultimately,
it wasn’t Vere’s "fault" for
not saving him when he could. Perhaps
Vere has come to understand that what
Billy stands for will never, truly be
sullied whatever happens. Vere gets
deliverance by intuiting how Billy has
"blessed him, saved him" with
"the love that passes understanding".
Billy’s love of life and what’s beyond
life has come to Vere at last. Peter
Grimes never reaches this moment
of lucidity, operating mainly on an
instinctive physical level. Captain
Vere exists on an altogether more rarefied,
sophisticated and spiritual plain. Grimes
simply commits suicide: what Vere endures
is altogether more complex. Britten,
through Vere, is contemplating much
more fundamental things, the very nature
of good and evil and our responsibilities
in the scheme of things. No wonder the
"sailor story" approach to
Billy Budd has held sway so long!
It’s far easier to assume Vere and Billy
are simply "roles" that tell
the story on the surface. But that’s
not what’s in the score, nor in the
libretto.
This is
an important recording. It has enhanced
how I feel about Britten, even though
I know his work fairly well. It’s changed
the whole way I listen to Billy Budd
and placed it, for me, among the
greatest of the composer’s works. It
was a privilege to be present when the
recording was made: see review
Anne
Ozorio
London Symphony Orchestra/Daniel Harding
