Benjamin Britten's profound, though often maligned Billy Budd, directed by Michael Grandage, is underway at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Howard Gilman Opera House--running through February 13.
Of course, we told you to see the traveling Glyndebourne production, conducted by Sir Mark Elder, back in December.
Budd's since been well-received with warm accolades from Gotham's top opera-ed outlets.
Justin Davidson, classical music and architecture critic at New York, writes:
In this little world, full of sealed-in love and loathing, and populated solely by men, Benjamin Britten found the ideal vessel for an opera. And in Billy Budd, he found the ideal music for every moment of the seaman's day. The rhythmic scraping of the deck, the heaving of ropes, the loading of guns, the ocean swells and bleak stillness of a windless day--it's as if Britten had cast a spell on the physical world and turned it into a topography of sound.
And if that weren't enough praise, George Grella at the New York Classical Review writes:
Musically, this is Britten's greatest operatic composition. It is more complex, subtle and sophisticated than his other masterpiece, Peter Grimes. He manages to write memorable, individual music for a myriad of secondary and tertiary characters and spins dramatic narrative with concentrated means: a saxophone solo laments a sailor who has been whipped in punishment, and later laments Claggart's egocentric, atavistic need to crowd out Billy's goodness with his own misanthropy.
With an all-male cast featuring phenomenal performances from Mark Padmore as Captain Vere and Jacques Imbrailo as Bill, himself, this production is sure to bring the opera some much needed American respect.
So, if you haven't yet purchased tickets for Billy Budd, click here before it's too late.
Here's some background on that trailer that's been prefacing your YouTube viewing lately.
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