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CHAN 9826 FRONT.qxd 29/8/07 1:48 pm Page 1 CHAN 9826(3) CHANDOS CHAN 9826 BOOK.qxd 29/8/07 2:05 pm Page 2 Benjamin Britten (1913–1976) Photograph: Kurt Hutton Courtesy of Aldeburgh The Britten–Pears Library, Benjamin Britten working on ‘Billy Budd’ An opera in two acts Revised version 1961 Libretto by E.M. Forster and E. Crozier Adapted from the story by Herman Melville 3 CHAN 9826 BOOK.qxd 29/8/07 2:05 pm Page 4 Captain Vere, of the Indomitable ................................................................................Philip Langridge tenor COMPACT DISC ONE Time Page Billy Budd, able seaman ........................................................................................Simon Keenlyside baritone Prologue Claggart, the Master-at-Arms ..........................................................................................John Tomlinson bass 1 ‘I am an old man…’ 5:09 147 Mr Redburn , First Lieutenant ..............................................................................................Alan Opie baritone Vere Mr Flint, Sailing Master ........................................................................................Matthew Best bass-baritone Mr Ratcliffe , Second Lieutenant ..............................................................................................Alan Ewing bass Act I 44:43 31 Red Whiskers, an impressed man ................................................................................Francis Egerton tenor Donald, a sailor ..............................................................................................................Quentin Hayes baritone Scene 1 23:30 147 Dansker, an old seaman ..........................................................................................................Clive Bayley bass 2 ‘Pull, me bantams!’ 6:43 147 A Novice ................................................................................................................................Mark Padmore tenor First Mate et al. Squeak, a ship’s corporal ..................................................................................................Richard Coxon tenor 3 ‘Boat ahoy!’ 3:17 159 Bosun..............................................................................................................................Timothy DuFore baritone Maintop et al. First Mate ..................................................................................................................Christopher Keyte baritone 4 ‘First man forward!’ 2:17 163 Second Mate ........................................................................................................Richard Whitehouse baritone Claggart et al. Maintop..................................................................................................................................Daniel Norman tenor 5 ‘Your name?’ 2:40 167 Novice’s Friend ........................................................................................................Roderick Williams baritone Claggart, Billy, First Lieutenant, Sailing Master Arthur Jones, another impressed man................................................................Roderick Williams baritone 6 ‘Billy Budd, king of the birds!’ 2:27 171 Cabin Boy ..............................................................................................................................Alex Johnston treble Billy, Sailing Master, First Lieutenant, Ratcliffe TT 22:36 111 Officers, Sailors, Four Midshipmen, Powder-Monkeys, Drummers and Marines London Symphony Chorus COMPACT DISC TWO Time Page Stephen Westrop chorus master 1 ‘I heard, your honour!’ 3:29 175 Tiffin Boys’ Choir Claggart, Squeak, Novice’s Friend 2 ‘Come along, kid!’ 4:22 177 Simon Toyne chorus master Novice’s Friend, Novice, Chorus London Symphony Orchestra 3 ‘Christ! The poor chap…’ 1:30 179 Richard Hetherington assistant conductor Billy, Dansker, Red Whiskers, Donald Richard Hickox 4 ‘What’s that? What’s those whistles?’ 1:16 183 Billy, Donald, Claggart, First Mate, Second Mate, Bosun 5 ‘Starry Vere we call him.’ 2:17 185 Donald, Billy, Chorus, Red Whiskers, Dansker, Bosun 4 5 CHAN 9826 BOOK.qxd 29/8/07 2:05 pm Page 6 COMPACT DISC ONE Time Page COMPACT DISC THREE Time Page Scene 2 23:30 31 Act II 44:43 [p. 31] 6 ‘Boy!’ 3:25 191 Scene 1 23:30 [p. 31] Vere, Boy 1 ‘I don’t like the look of the mist…’ 2:17 133 7 ‘Gentlemen, the King!’ 5:43 191 Vere, First Lieutenant Vere, First Lieutenant, Sailing Master 2 ‘With great regret I must disturb your honour.’ 1:04 135 8 ‘Ay, at Spithead…’ 1:00 197 Claggart, Vere Vere, Sailing Master, First Lieutenant 3 ‘Deck ahoy!’ 3:27 135 9 ‘We are, sir. Claggart is an able one.’ 6:36 197 Maintop et al. First Lieutenant, Vere, Sailing Master, Ratcliffe 4 ‘Volunteers! Call for boarding volunteers!’ 8:13 145 Vere et al. Scene 3 23:30 31 5 ‘There you are again, Master-at-Arms.’ 5:01 159 10 ‘Blow her away.’ 2:44 103 Vere, Claggart, Boy Red Whiskers, Chorus, Billy, Donald, Dansker 6 ‘Oh, this cursèd mist!’ 4:04 163 11 ‘We’re off to Samoa…’ 3:43 103 Vere, First Lieutenant, Sailing Master, Ratcliffe Donald, Chorus, Red Whiskers, Billy, Donald, Dansker 12 ‘Hi! You… a… a…!’ 3:02 109 Scene 2 23:30 31 Billy et al. 7 ‘Claggart, John Claggart, beware!’ 3:36 165 13 ‘Over the water…’ 7:29 115 Vere, Billy Chorus, Claggart 8 ‘Master-at-Arms and foretopman…’ 3:19 169 14 ‘Come here.’ 6:22 117 Vere, Claggart, Billy Claggart, Novice 9 ‘God o’ mercy!’ 2:11 171 15 ‘Billy!… Hist! Billy Budd!’ 4:23 121 Vere, Boy Novice, Billy 10 ‘Gentlemen, William Budd here…’ 1:34 173 16 ‘Dansker, old friend…’ 4:50 125 Vere, First Lieutenant, Sailing Master, Ratcliffe Billy, Dansker 11 ‘William Budd, you are accused…’ 5:48 177 TT 62:17 111 First Lieutenant, Vere, Billy 12 ‘Poor fellow, who could save him?’ 5:02 181 First Lieutenant, Sailing Master, Ratcliffe 13 ‘I accept their verdict.’ 5:15 185 Vere 6 7 CHAN 9826 BOOK.qxd 29/8/07 2:05 pm Page 8 COMPACT DISC ONE Time Page Scene 3 23:30 31 14 ‘Look!’ 6:05 187 Benjamin Britten Billy In 1846, off the coast of Mexico, a young seaman more innocent and with a stammer brought on by 15 ‘Here! Baby!’ 4:10 187 named Elisha Small aboard the brig USS St Mary’s sudden outbursts of temper. Dansker, Billy struck an officer and was hanged after a court-martial In the third draft of the story, begun in November 16 ‘And farewell to ye…’ 5:49 191 convened by the ship’s commodore. Asked by the 1888, Melville enlarged the character of Vere. With Billy captain to forgive him for sentencing him, Small said: mutiny an ever-present concern, Claggart brings a ‘Yes, sir, and I honour you for it. God bless that flag!’. false charge against Billy. Vere sees them both in his Scene 4 23:30 31 Four years earlier, aboard the frigate USS Somers, a cabin. Asked to defend himself, Billy stammers and, in 17 [Interlude] 3:11 191 midshipman and two petty officers were convicted of his frustration, aims a blow at Claggart, who falls 18 ‘ “According to the Articles of War…” ’ 2:18 191 planning a mutiny and hanged from the yard-arm. dead. At a hastily summoned court-martial, Vere All except Vere One of the officers at the court-martial was refuses to save Billy. He agrees with the other officers Lieutenant Guert Ganservoort, cousin of the novelist that ‘surely Budd purposed neither mutiny nor 19 ‘Down all hands!’ 2:26 193 Herman Melville. homicide’ but rules that ‘we proceed under First Lieutenant et al. Melville was greatly affected by these two the law of the Mutiny Act… Budd’s intent or incidents, and in 1886 wrote his first draft of what he non-intent is nothing to the purpose’. Billy Epilogue 23:30 31 finally called Billy Budd, Sailor. This was just the is duly hanged. The book now ends with the 20 ‘We committed his body to the deep.’ 4:57 193 thirty-two-line poem ‘Billy in the Darbies’, with a short poem which was its starting-point and was Vere prose introduction. This first Billy is an older man left unfinished when Melville died in 1891. It was TT 79:48 151 than Melville later made him. He is awaiting execution not published until 1924. for a crime he evidently did commit, because the line The English novelist E.M. Forster discussed Billy ‘Ay, ay, all is up’ (retained in the operatic version of Budd in the Clark lectures he delivered at Cambridge the ballad) was originally ‘The game is up’. Later, University in 1927. Forster met the composer Melville decided to incorporate the ballad into a Benjamin Britten, thirty-four years his junior, in the novella. He transferred the setting to a warship of the years just before the Second World War. They were Royal Navy in 1797, just after the minor mutiny at introduced by W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood. Spithead in April of that year and the more serious Later, when Britten was in America in 1941, it was an mutiny at the Nore (at the mouth of the Thames) in article about the poet George Crabbe by Forster – the May. The man o’ war, commanded by Captain Edward text of a broadcast talk – in the BBC publication The Fairfax Vere, is the HMS Indomitable and Melville Listener that made Britten homesick for Suffolk and introduced an evil master-at-arms (the warrant officer led him to the subject of Peter Grimes. When Britten in charge of a ship’s discipline) named John Claggart returned to England the friendship was resumed. as a total contrast to Billy, who now became younger, Forster loved music and greatly admired Britten’s. The 8 9 CHAN 9826 BOOK.qxd 29/8/07 2:05 pm Page 10 comic opera Albert Herring is dedicated to him. Some although too much stress can be laid on it, Here we can see that, just as