If the English Channel is some dozen or so miles away from Glyndebourne, one can still sense the proximity of the sea in Britten’s nautical masterpiece that is Billy Budd. In this second revival of Michael Grandage’s 2010 staging, again by Ian Rutherford, the swell and restless surge of the ocean is a constant presence. If there are no rolling waves or scudding clouds visible in Christopher Oram’s sets, he leaves no doubt we are in the underbelly of a seventy-four-gun Napoleonic man-o’-war.
No matter too, the absence of any mast or rigging, Oram’s three-tiered wooden frame and a cluster of bulwarks, hammocks and ropes brilliantly conveys the ship’s claustrophobic conditions, its living quarters crowded by marines, sailors, officers and powder monkeys. All are kitted out in uniforms belonging to the period around 1797 – a disturbing political time not long after the French Revolution and contemporary with the mutinies of Spithead and the Nore. Details are impressively realistic, down to Act One’s holystoning – a barbaric naval practice where sailors cleaned decks using blocks of sandstone, sand and seawater. Here the body language of the chorus is appropriately sullen and resentful. The only concession to more civilised conditions is Captain Vere’s cabin, the ship’s leaded windows bordered within a lowered wall. All is atmospherically lit by Paule Constables.
But it is the inhumanity of Herman Melville’s story that is so piercingly recreated by Britten and his librettists E.M. Forster and Eric Crozier, its tale originally inspired by a real event in the American Navy in 1842. Melville’s plot pivots on the decision by the morally conflicted Vere to impose an intractable rule of law over the newly press-ganged Budd whose unintended murder of the Master-at-Arms, John Claggart, must not go unpunished. Duty prevails, and while Vere is the sole witness to the death, he chooses to follow procedure despite recognising Budd’s essential innocence.
Alan Clayton perfectly captures Vere’s affable nature and, while not exactly a ‘Starry’ leader of men, inspires affection from all ranks of his crew. His ringing tenor and crystal-clear diction brings just the right self-reproach in the framing Prologue and Epilogue and fatherly tones when voicing Budd’s goodness to Claggart. He is at his best (and worst) when failing to save Budd who he calls ‘an angel’. At which point one wonders why the condemned sailor holds him in such regard.
In the title role, baritone Thomas Mole is ideally cast and brings a youthful optimism in his fellow man, mistakenly assuming Vere will ‘do the right thing’ and naively thinking Claggart likes him. Implausible as that may seem, Mole makes us believe in him, his singing a joy, whether in his jubilant ‘King of the birds’ aria after becoming a foretopman or bidding farewell to life in his ‘Passion’ music, seemingly accepting his fate without blame and blessing Vere with his final words.
His persecutor, the sinisterly Claggart is given a scorching, ink-black performance by Sam Carl, his malevolence shaped by a thousand-yard stare and a voice of oceanic depth. Words are weighted and communicated with a compelling venom making him evil incarnate, though any homoerotic suggestions here are largely tamed by the decision to destroy Budd merely because he is the very opposite of himself. The prevailing coexistence of beauty and ugliness is strikingly conveyed when the pitiful Novice, Laurence Kilsby, returns from a flogging accompanied by a tender saxophone, its poignant melody could almost belong to a slow movement from a Baroque concerto.
Humour is not entirely absent on board HMS Indomitable when Vere and his subordinates Mr Redburn (Dingle Yandell) and Mr Flint (William Thomas) toast the English and French fleets and joke at the enemies ’hoppity-skippity ways’. Elsewhere, supporting characters are vividly etched by Clive Bayley’s touching and world-weary Dansker, Daniel Norman’s treacherous Squeak and Alasdair Elliott’s crabby Red Whiskers.
Honours too must go to the splendid, full-throated chorus, whether in sea shanties or raising the emotional temperature in the thrilling action stations sequence where cannon are primed and the red ensign is hoisted at the rear of the stage. The excitement of approaching battle is one of Britten’s most cinematically conceived scenes to which cast and orchestra evidently relished. And in the pit Nicholas Carter and the London Philharmonic Orchestra draw out all the drama and detail of this magnificent score, its renowned passage of 34 chords still haunting the ear as I write.
David Truslove
Billy Budd
Music: Benjamin Britten
Libretto: Eric Crozier and E M Forster drawn from Herman Melville’s novella Billy Budd, Foretopman
Cast and Production Staff:
Billy Budd – Thomas Mole; Captain Vere – Alan Clayton; John Claggart – Sam Carl; Mr Flint – William Thomas; Mr Redburn – Dingle Yandell; Lieutenant Ratcliffe – Daniel Okulitch; Red Whiskers – Alasdair Elliott; Novice – Sam Furness; Squeak – Daniel Norman; Dansker – Clive Bayley; Arthur Jones – Adam Marsden; Bosun – Michael Ronan; First Mate – Michael Wallace; Second Mate – John Mackenzie-Lavansch; Novice – Laurence Kilsby; Novice’s Friend – Alex Otterburn
Director – Michael Grandage; Revival Director – Ian Rutherford; Designer – Christopher Oram; Lighting Designer – Paule Constable; Fight Director – Martin Ruddick; London Philharmonic Orchestra; The Glyndebourne Chorus Conductor – Nicholas Carter
Glyndebourne Festival Opera; Lewes, East Sussex, England, 5 July 2026
Top image: Captain Vere (Allan Clayton)
All photos © Glyndebourne Productions Ltd. Photo: Tristram Kenton