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The travelling three counter-tenor circus London Barbican 11/25/1999 - Benjamin Britten Billy Budd Philip Langridge (Captain Vere), Simon Keenlyside (Billy Budd), John
Tomlinson (Claggart), Alan Opie (Redburn), Matthew Best (Flint), Frances
Egerton (Red Whiskers), Alan Ewing (Ratcliffe), Quentin Hayes (Donald),
Clive Bayley (Dansker), Richard Coxon (Squeak), Mark Padmore (Novice),
Roderick Williams (Novice's friend/Arthur Jones), Daniel Norman
(Maintop) Tiffin Boys' Choir, London Symphony Chorus (men's voices)
London Symphony Orchestra
Richard Hickox (conductor) The two-act version of Billy Budd used in this performance is to be
recorded almost immediately by the same forces. This concert version,
though obviously thoroughly prepared, was as exciting and moving as you
could hope for from a live performance. The chorus was massed behind the
orchestra, while the principals, in the modified evening dress that seems
to be usual for semi-stagings these days, acted out their scenes in front.
This worked wonderfully, emphasising Vere's isolation and the individual
struggles in the middle of the repressed mass of the crew and the more
vigorously disturbed mass of the sea.
John Tomlinson as Claggart was clearly separate from the rest of the cast,
a malevolent force of nature. (There were even a couple of boos as he took
his bow at the end, which is homage indeed from a concert-hall audience.)
This was a role where he couldn't be too loud or relentless, and he added a
truly terrifying malice to the violence.
Simon Keenlyside's nervily cheerful Budd seemed even more vulnerable beside
him. His voice seemed fragile, less beautiful in his monologues than in
some other comparable performances, but this could have been because he was
colouring every note to express the meaning of the words. His famous dawn
monologue, "Billy in the darbies", was heart-breaking, far from pretty, but
the following monologue, "Can't shake hands", in which he comes to terms
with dying, turned out to be even more of a tour de force, both as a
dramatic composition and as a performance.
Philip Langridge as Vere was also vulnerable, his singing not particularly
beautiful but agonizingly expressive. His frame-closing monologue combined
nostalgia and a kind of redemption through accepting despair that left the
audience stunned for many seconds after the music ended.
The rest of the cast was impeccable, and luxurious, down to the excellent
young tenor Daniel Norman singing a few bars as Maintop. Clive Bayley, who
must be heir-apparent to John Tomlinson, was a mellifluous Dansker, and
Mark Padmore a disturbed, destroyed, Novice. Alan Opie and Francis Egerton
were only the best of a cast of supporting characters worthy of a Powell
and Pressburger film.
Perhaps in the same spirit, Richard Hickox and the London Symphony
Orchestra made the music sound more like a Korngold film score that you
would have believed possible, though there echoes of Paul Bunyan in
Billy Budd that point to the German-American popular art-music
genre. The men's voices of the London Symphony Chorus were stirring and at
times frightening. Not having to scurry around decks and fire cannon, they
were able to concentrate on the suppressed rage of the sailor's collective
music. H.E. Elsom
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