Britten's most famous opera is also--unless there's something really obvious I'm forgetting, as is so often the case--the most famous opera with an all-male cast. I am trying and failing to find anything interesting to say about that fact, but I thought it was at least worth noting.
This is of course based on Melville's final, unfinished novel, which I am forced to admit I have not read. Well, actually, I could easily claim to have read it! It's my blog! I can do what I like! But, I haven't. And I think that really influenced my viewing of the opera. All I really knew about it was the very general premise--implacably evil officer plots to destroy preternaturally good sailor. I knew none of the details, and as such I found myself caught up in the plot in a way that I might not have been otherwise. Seriously, this shook me. I kept wanting to go, no! This can't be happening! Argh! And at the end, when the sympathetic yet ineffectual captain ponders to himself, I could have saved him, I thought, yeah! Ya coulda done! Or at the very least, make a hell of a lot more of an effort than you actually did! I mean, obviously, I know that all this is the point, and the whole mixture of human fallibility and ambiguous morality is a SUPER-Melvillean thing, but at any rate. Regardless. I got caught up in it. I had, as the kids say, All the Feels.
It's a powerful drama; what can I say. Claggart, the evil master-of-arms, is a great character. Nominally, he's motivated by envy of Billy, but it really comes across as just this implacable, motiveless, Iago-like malevolence. Certainly his villain aria, "O beauty, O handsomeness, goodness" is a highlight. And yet, Billy himself is also a more appealing character than you'd expect from someone whose main characteristic is "saintliness." His one defect is a stutter that manifests itself under stress, and you might wonder: how does that work in an opera? And the answer is: fine. It's not an issue. I mean, a few times he's not able to articulate lines, and that's about it. Nothing distracting or anything. And I DO like Britten's music, as I may have said and/or implied before.
There are actually like four or five different productions I could have watched, but I chose this Met made-for-TV movie, just because I wanted to see the great James Morris as Claggart--one of his signature roles, as I understand it. And, yup, he's terrifically sinister. As he dies (um, spoiler) this little half-smile flits across his face that's just chilling as anything. Dwayne Croft is very well-cast as Billy, guileless and likeable, and OH MY GOODNESS does he nail his wrenching pre-death aria ("look! through the port comes the moonshine astray").
What can I say? I'm a Britten fanboy; that's all I can say. I feel linguistic patriotism to have discovered such an indisputably great English-language composer (okay, so I already had the second half of Handel's career; you know what I mean).
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