Opera North

Opera North’s 2016 Billy Budd is reworked for two dramatic concert performances at Snape Maltings, as part of the 2017 Aldeburgh Festival, in the town most associated with Benjamin Britten’s life and work. It is believed to be the first time that Billy Budd has been performed in Aldeburgh in its entirety.

Billy Budd explores many of Britten’s recurrent themes with penetrating psychological insight: innocence corrupted, good destroyed by evil, and the outsider. It tells the tale of Billy, a young sailor who radiates beauty and goodness, provoking the envy of the ship’s Master at Arms, John Claggart. The one man who has it in his power to save Billy is the HMS Indomitable’s Captain Vere, who is haunted by his failure to do so.

For many, the power of Britten’s large-scale orchestral writing, the all-male forces, and the intensity with which he responds to the work’s subject matter make this his greatest operatic achievement.

A cast of leading Britten interpreters, conducted by Garry Walker, includes Roderick Williams in the title role and Alan Oke as Vere, both returning from Opera North’s 2016 production. Brindley Sherratt joins the cast as Claggart, the Master at Arms who helps seal Billy’s fate.