\nMelville’s day, none of it would have happened. David Alden’s production of Billy Budd<\/i> at the English National Opera
\nhas received very good reviews from many of my opera critic colleagues. Paul
\nSteinberg’s set and Constance Hoffman’s costumes send mixed messages about the
\nlocation and period of the drama, but seem to be trying to place the action in
\nthe present, in some sort of forced labour plant – a Soviet oil refinery
\nperhaps? Or in the bowels of a
\nnuclear submarine<\/span>
![](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm9.staticflickr.com\/8019\/7394286442_0d14a9a3e1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n<\/p>\n
But then there are the anachronistic early I Reflecting Mr ENO’s The If <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If there had only been gay marriage in Melville’s day, none of it would have happened. David Alden’s production of Billy Budd at the English National Opera has received very good reviews from many of my opera critic colleagues. Paul Steinberg’s set and Constance Hoffman’s costumes send mixed messages about the location and period of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-749","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbv6zV-c5","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n19th<\/sup> century costumes of Captain Vere and some of the other naval
\nofficers, and the William IV chairs and table in Vere’s quarters. Probably just
\nMr Alden’s attempt to have his Modernist cake and eat it, but confusing.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nfeel the staging compares unfavourably to Michael Grandage’s at Glyndebourne,
\nwhich was set about a breathtakingly accurate and detailed late 18th<\/sup>
\ncentury Man of War, as called for in Melville and in E.M. Forster and Eric
\nCrozier’s libretto. It must have been very expensive – I’ve never before seen a
\nproduction of Britten’s opera that attempted this degree of realism – but it
\nwas totally satisfying, thrilling even.<\/span><\/p>\n
\non the sets -curving black walls and brown wooden walls with shallow diagonal
\nstruts, black iron gantries and wheeled steps, a huge white tube that doubled
\nas entrance to Vere’s all-white quarters and as the cannon, plenty of ropes and
\nsome mattresses on the floor, a trap door for Claggart’s bowels of the ship – I
\nthink I’d have preferred to let my imagination do the work with a bare stage to
\nall this folderol. <\/span><\/p>\n
\nAlden’s directing of the enormous augmented chorus also left a lot to be
\ndesired, as he massed them in a more or less straight line at the front of the
\nstage, which meant they were competing with the large orchestra to see who
\ncould be the noisier. The orchestra, under Edward Gardner, played with real
\npassion, and my only reservation is that their piano<\/i> could have been more controlled and quiet, with more dynamic contrast.
\nThere were some fine individual performances, especially in the title role by
\nBenedict Nelson, Kim Begley and Vere, Duncan Rock as a mightily muscled Donald,
\nand Nicky Spence sang beautifully as the Novice.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nprogramme notes, despite naval historian Andrew Lambert’s use of “hung” for
\n“hanged,” are enlightening,
\nparticularly about the good navy knots the gay Britten and Forster tied
\nthemselves into when it came to making explicit the homoerotic undertones of
\nthe Melville novella. They made me reflect that the piece is a terrific
\nargument for gay marriage.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nexistence of gay marriage and the removal of the stigma regarding homosexuality
\nwould have nullified the Articles of War XXIX, which specified the death
\npenalty “if any person in the fleet, shall commit the unnatural and detestable
\nsin of buggery or sodomy, with man or beast.” With the disappearance of the taboos, attitudes towards
\nhomosexual love would have change to what they are in the civilised part of the
\nworld today, and both Claggart and Vere could have admitted to themselves and
\nto others their love for Billy. It would still be conflicted by their power
\nrelations – but that would be another, possibly more honest, plot. And in this openly gay Billy Budd<\/i> Claggart could not be the Coleridgean
\nunmotivated evil character that I think he is; as Auden pointed out, being
\ncapable of love would give Claggart a motive for his wickedness.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nthere had been gay marriage in 1951, we shouldn’t have had one of Britten’s
\ngreatest works: the silver lining to a very black cloud.<\/span><\/p>\n