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Music Text

Libretto by E M Forster and Eric Crozier, adapted from the story by Herman Melville (E,G,I)

Scoring

Major roles: T,Bar,B; minor roles: 4T,7Bar,BBar,2B;
children's roles: 4Tr,boy speaker,boy actors; men's chorus
4(II,III,IV=picc).2.corA.3(II=Ebcl,bcl;III=bcl).asax.2.dbn-
4.4(III in D).3.1-timp(3).perc(6):xyl/glsp/tgl/wdbl/tamb/SD/TD/BD/
whip/cyms/2 gongs (small, medium)/4drums(on-stage)-harp-strings

Abbreviations (PDF)

Opera
For full details on this stagework, including synopsis and roles, please visit our Opera section.
Publisher

Boosey & Hawkes

Territory
This work is available from Boosey & Hawkes for the world.

Availability
Digital Score
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World premiere of version
09/01/1964
Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London
Basil Coleman, director / Royal Opera Covent Garden / Georg Solti
Repertoire Note

Billy Budd was written during 1950-51 and first performed in December 1951 as part of that year’s ‘Festival of Britain’ celebrations. In 1960, Britten revised the work, contracting the original four acts into two, in which form it is now generally performed (though the original version is now again available for performance). The work is based on Herman Melville’s posthumous novel Billy Budd, Foretopman which Britten and his librettists (E.M.Forster and Eric Crozier) transformed into an opera of great musico-dramatic power and psychological subtlety. Although Billy is the opera’s eponymous hero, the real focus of the work is the moral dilemma facing Captain Vere who, confronted with an agonising decision between saving Billy and his sense of duty as the ship’s Captain is at the centre of the drama (a theme further explored by Britten in Gloriana).

Billy Budd employs the largest orchestra of any Britten opera, capable of unleashing an elemental power when the moment demands it, but in general, the orchestration favours the more sharply etched, transparent textures developed in the chamber operas.

Reproduced by kind permission of the Britten-Pears Library

Subjects
Recommended Recording
cd_cover

Peter Pears/Michael Langdon/John Shirley-Quirk/Owen Brannigan/Robert Tear/Benjamin Luxon/London Symphony Orchestra/Ambrosian Opera Chorus/Wandsworth School Boys’ Choir
Decca 417 4282

Simon Keenlyside/Philip Langridge/John Tomlinson/Alan Opie/Matthew Best/Alan Ewing/Francis Egerton/Quentin Hayes/Clive Bayley/Mark Padmore/Richard Coxon/Timothy Dufore/Christopher Keyte/Richard Whitehouse/Daniel Norman/Roderick Williams/London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus/Tiffin Boys School Choir/Richard Hickox
Chandos CHAN9826

Links

Listening
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