Billy Budd review – Clayton Fair’s film is the devastating heart of live theater | classical music

forGrey, its deck gently curved, HMS Indomitable looms over Michael Grandage’s production of Britten’s Billy Budd. Half skeleton, half cage, the ship is relentlessly claustrophobic, its hard edges softened only by coils of rope, hammocks, and Paul Constable’s brilliant lighting. No wonder the opera’s crowd of male bodies – here dressed in Napoleonic naval uniforms and dingy overalls – carries a palpable charge: visceral, violent, erotic. Thanks to the curved surface, those standing center stage in Christopher Oram’s set appear as if they were through a fish-eye lens or one of the officer’s telescopes. In this floating world at war, everyone is under scrutiny.

Premiered at Glyndebourne in 2010, Grandage’s production is now in the hands of revival director Ian Rutherford. Lines have been drawn between the kindness of the piece’s “angel” Billy Budd and the malevolence of its villain, John Claggart, whose “sexual discharge into evil” (lyricist E.M. Forster’s words) led to Budd’s death. Bud swings across the stage, a graceful gymnast, unique in his physical ease. Claggart shivers and barks. The love “who could not pronounce his name” in the opera’s 1951 premiere finds here other ways to communicate; In one scene, Claggart bullies the terrified newbie in a stranglehold that is at once an unmistakable embrace.

These lively polar roles played by baritone Thomas Mole (Bud) and baritone Sam Carle (Claggart) were convincing. Moll’s voice was polished where Carl’s tended to be sour at the bottom and fierce at the top. Moll’s double-speed chirp in his scene with the Captain was a haunting shot of over-excited youth. Carl’s flashes of lush baritone beauty heighten crucial tensions in the plot.

However, neither was so lively or so uniquely distinctive as to stand out for long from the general array of male voices in the work. The rich polish of the chorus mix and the sometimes crushing heaviness of her voice effectively contrast the men’s pathetic physical condition. There were many great performances among the other roles mentioned. Clive Bayley’s Dansker was warmly sympathetic, and Lawrence Kilsby was a skin-crawling neophyte. William Thomas, Dingle Yandell and Daniel Okulich competed as tough, hard-nosed types. The London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Nicholas Carter, rolled and surged under the action, seductive or brutal as the situation demanded.

But the effectiveness of this opera ultimately depends – like the fate of its characters – on the qualities of Captain Vere. Alan Clayton, an extraordinary exponent of chaotic and troubled characters, may not seem like an obvious real person. Yet here he stood taller and steadier than ever, exuding an air of affability, his luminous, sensitive tenor carving through the darkness of the opera – first as the voice of reason, then conscience. His final scene (alone on stage, wig thrown away) is quietly devastating: an intimate portrait of human frailty.