Billy Budd

Joshua Hopkins as Billy Budd and the ship's crew Amanda Tipton Photography

A lot has been written about Melville's views on good and evil, often painting the artist's world in black and white terms, but as Billy Budd clearly demonstrates, moral ambiguities abound in what Melville leaves out of the story, for our imaginations to render.

Benjamin Britten's sublime, atmospheric score orchestrates and amplifies the emotional dynamics of the libretto, following the contemporary trend of the libretto dictating the music, rather than the classical approach of the melody shaping the libretto.

Daniel Norman as Edward Fairfax Vere Amanda Tipton Photography

Nevertheless, there is a hefty measure of poignancy in the score and arias (including the chorus' sea shanties), and Melville's well-told tale holds a wealth of insights into the evolving moral questions of the late 19th century among the New England literati.

Prologue and epilogue narratives by Captain Edward Fairfax Vere (Daniel Norman), now long retired, frame the action, as the former Royal Navy officer ponders his choices in the case of Billy Budd. Yet, in the first act, we see one seaman brutally flogged for accidentally bumping into an officer and three men kidnapped from a merchant ship and forced into duty—the latter practice of impressment being a standard means of staffing war ships for a number of countries, though Britain was far and away the most rampant in these enslavements.

Daniel Norman as Edward Fairfax Vere and Joshua Hopkins as Billy Budd Amanda Tipton Photography

In this way, Melville lays bare the disparity between the "official version" of events, as Vere remembers them, and the actual version of events, as the audience sees them. Thus, much of Vere's presumption that he was "following the law" is undermined by the lawlessness of the navy itself, as we experience in the two acts, being privy to events that are not shared among the different parties. While Vere sees imperfections in the divine, he does not recognize those which he embodies.

Thus, Vere does not represent Melville's point of view, but that of an institution and culture of which Melville is critical. One could even see the stroke that Vere suffers in the epilogue as Melville's sign of the Captain's affliction from his compartmentalized and blind moral universe, the one in which Vere, a learned man, tries to justify his own life. The confluence of all these conflicting forces shows in Norman's detailed expressions and nuanced tenor; indeed, this is the through line of the opera!

Kevin Burdette as John Claggart Amanda Tipton Photography

Billy Budd (Joshua Hopkins) is, as the Master-of-Arms on the ship, John Claggart (Kevin Burdette), says, "a find in a thousand," despite Billy's stammer, because the handsome and winsome young man is overjoyed at serving G-d, king, and country. Within the story as it appears to the audience, as the objective observer, the dialectic between Billy's exemplary, but flawed (the stammer and its attendant frustrations and the accompanying anger), life and Claggart's dark jealousies and repressed homo-erotic feelings (which at the time bring great guilt to Claggart, as we see in his infatuation with the smell of Billy's bandana, that he ordered Billy to remove, and his short bout of self-flaggelation) is the dynamic that leads to the defining moment, when Claggart unjustly accuses Billy of mutiny and Billy—unable to answer, only stammer—delivers one punch to Claggart, killing him.

Joshua Hopkins as Billy Budd and Matthew Burns as Dansker Amanda Tipton Photography

What we see, but Vere does not, is that Claggart ordered a mate to bribe Billy with some gold coins, and that Billy refused. Only Billy's friend, the experienced seaman, Dansker (Matthew Burns), was party to the attempted bribe; and, despite his love for Billy, Dansker never appeals to Vere. The three officers serving Vere find Billy guilty and sentence him to hanging (as prescribed by maritime law, during wartime, for striking a superior officer), as they bear a certain grudge, from having misunderstood Billy's words of parting to his old ship the "Rights o' Man," as they took his "Farewell!" to mean that he supported the French Revolution, an anathema to the British monarchy.

Hopkins demeanor and baritone exude Billy's sunny sense of being and valiant vision. Burdette's resonant bass drives home the malevolency of Claggart's intensions. The wizened Dansker's kindness and concern shines in Burns' warm performance.

Joshua Hopkins as Billy Budd Amanda Tipton Photography

Kudos to director Ken Cazan for embracing the ambiguities of the work and to maestro John Baril and the 59-piece Festival Orchestra for the exemplary rendition of Benjamin Britten's score. The seven-man auxilary chorus, evocative scenery and rigging (Takeshi Kata and David Martin Jacques), finely detailed-period costumes (Jonathan Knipscher), flavorful projections (Sean Cawelti), and emotive lighting (David Martin Jacques) round out this excellent adaptation. The production marks the ninth masterwork by Britten mounted by the Central City Opera, eight of which have come during the tenure of General/Artistic Director Pelham G. Pearce, Jr.

Central City Opera's Colorado premiere of Billy Budd runs through August 2nd, in repetory with Puccini's Madama Butterfly, Debussy's The Blessed Damozel, and Poulenc's, Litanies to the Black Virgin. For tickets: centralcityopera.org/shows/billy_budd.

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