By Benjamin Britten
This production has now ended.
Sung in English with supertitles
Behind the Scenes Billy Budd Mini Feature:
Watch interviews with Director Michael Grandage, Designer Christopher Oram and Lighting Designer Paule Constable. Plus exclusive rehearsal footage filmed in May 2010.
© Glyndebourne Productions 2010.
Produced by Karen McCallion and Simon Yapp
Listen Online to the Billy Budd Podcast (20mins):
James Whitbourn interviews director Michael Grandage and conductor Sir Mark Elder about the 2010 Glyndebourne Festival Production of Benjamin Britten’s Billy Budd.
Audio excerpts courtesy of Decca/LSO, Benjamin Britten recording available online
Download this podcast (right click and select "save file as")
About this Production
Glyndebourne’s proud association with the operas of Benjamin Britten stretches from its world premiere productions of The Rape of Lucretia and Albert Herring in 1946 and 1947 through to Jonathan Kent’s 2007 Festival staging of The Turn of the Screw, taking in memorable reappraisals of Peter Grimes', A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Owen Wingrave and Death in Venice along the way. However, Glyndebourne has never, until now, staged Billy Budd, the 1951 all-male opera, with a libretto co-written by E. M. Forster. Based on Herman Melville’s allegorical tale about the battle between pure good and blind evil, the opera takes place amidships on a British man-o’-war. Michael Grandage has chosen this work to make his long-awaited operatic debut. He is the Artistic Director of the Donmar Warehouse in London and is the recipient of Olivier, Evening Standard, Critics’ Circle and South Bank Show awards for his work.
With a string of Glyndebourne successes behind him (most recently the 2006 Festival revival of Fidelio (now released on the Glyndebourne CD label), Sir Mark Elder returns to conduct this new production. The cast includes South African baritone Jacques Imbrailo (winner of the Audience Prize at the 2007 Cardiff Singer of the World) as Billy, the saintly but flawed foretopman; Canadian bass Phillip Ens as Claggart, the black-hearted Master-at-Arms (a role he has previously sung in Cardiff, San Francisco and Munich), and British tenor John Mark Ainsley (winner of the 2007 Royal Philharmonic Society Singer Award), making his First UK appearance as ‘starry’ Vere, the Captain whose temporary loss of moral compass leads to tragedy at sea.
Performance schedule
Key
* = Pre-performance talk available in the in the Ebert Room.
Creative team
Conductor Mark Elder
Director Michael Grandage
Designer Christopher Oram
Lighting Designer Paule Constable
Movement Director Tom Roden
Cast
Captain Vere John Mark Ainsley
Billy Budd Jacques Imbrailo
Claggart Phillip Ens
Mr Redburn Iain Paterson
Mr Flint Matthew Rose
Lieutenant Ratcliffe Darren Jeffery
Red Whiskers Alasdair Elliott
Donald John Moore
Dansker Jeremy White
The Novice Ben Johnson
Squeak Colin Judson
Bosun Richard Mosley-Evans
London Philharmonic Orchestra
The Glyndebourne Chorus