Britten
Billy Budd 160'
(semi-staged)
Jacques Imbrailo Billy Budd
Mark Padmore Captain Vere
Brindley Sherratt John Claggart
Stephen Gadd Mr Redburn
David Soar Mr Flint
Darren Jeffery Lieutenant Radcliffe
Alasdair Elliott Red Whiskers
John Moore Donald
Jeremy White Dansker
Peter Gijsbertsen The Novice
Colin Judson Squeak
Richard Mosley-Evans Bosun
Glyndebourne Festival Opera
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Sir Andrew Davis conductor
There will be one interval
Sir Andrew Davis conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the cast and chorus of Glyndebourne Festival in a production of Britten's Billy Budd.
Adapted by E. M. Forster and Eric Crozier from Herman Melville's unfinished novella, Britten's 1951 opera on the persecution and destruction of pure-hearted sailor Billy by a predatory master-at-arms is a tragedy of 'sexual discharge gone evil' in the Napoleonic Wars.
Jacques Imbrailo sings the title-role, with Brindley Sherratt as the sinister Claggart and Mark Padmore as the rule-bound Pontius Pilate figure, Captain 'Starry' Vere.