Captain Vere Robert Tear First Mate Ralph Hamer Second Mate Peter Massochi Flint Stephen Richardson Bosun James Miller-Coburn Donald Simon Thorpe Maintop Philip Lloyd Holtam Novice Ivan Sharpe Squeak Michael Clifton-Thompson Redburn David Barrell Ratcliffe Dean Robinson Claggart Phillip Ens Red Whiskers John Harris Arthur Jones David Tagg Billy Budd Christopher Maltman Novice's friend Philip Lloyd-Evans Dansker Grant Dickson Cabin Boy Andrew Rogers Midshipmen Alex Garner, Iain Hunter, Christopher Jones, Richard Patch, Paul Senter, David Veller Conductor Andrew Litton Producer Neil Armfield Set designer Brian Thomson WNO Orchestra, Chorus I've never seen Billy Budd, and haven't even listened to the music much, though I've read plenty of discussion about it. This production left me with the impression of a study in the petty exercise of power, heavily eroticized, and of nervous solidarity in the face of abuse. The Indomitable could have been a boys' school or monastery. The rights of man serves only as a bogey to justify the extreme actions of Vere and others, not as a vision of an alternative available to the sailors. (This is pretty odd coming from a composer and co-librettist who regarded themselves as radicals. Melville did a bit better.) The production certainly emphasized the personal drama over the political and historical themes. The singers were all in naval dress of the right date, with the officers in black and white and the sailors in greyish browns. But the set consisted of a platform on the stage that moved around, and rose and fell at each end. At times it imitated the movement and rolling deck of the ship, but it also served to raise the officers above the men in situations where the hierarchy matters, such as the abortive pursuit of the French ship and the dead of Billy. Vere struggled up a steep slope (I think) on the way to break the news of the verdict to Billy, and there were one or two obvious metaphorical downhill slides. It took a few minutes to get used to, but it worked pretty well. The main difficulty was probably that the audience couldn't help waiting for somebody to drop something that would roll over the edge of the platform. They nearly lost the florins. Also, from the balcony I couldn't always see the singers' heads when the platform was at its highest. But I must often have had a clearer view of the singers than people in the stalls did. The rest of the stage was generally dark, but there were some powerful abstract lighting effects. The performance itself was also very powerful in an uncomfortable kind of way. The ensemble, with a large number of well characterized smallish roles, was really the star, creating an effect of collective discontent that culminated in a genuinely threatening though incoherent final wordless protest. The sea-shanties were expressively done, with "Hilo" gently mournful and "Off to Genoa" hysterical. Ivan Sharpe as the Novice was suitably fragile, first terrified then utterly broken and desperate not to be beaten again. The officers, in spite of the fact that there were all dressed identically, ere also well distinguished. Phillip Ens was ideally devious and thuggish s Claggard, with a great heavy voice. Flint and Redburn were a couple of semi-comic idiots, very funny in the "don't like the French" routine, and not quite up to dealing with the death sentence. Robert Tear was perhaps too detached as Vere. He wrote a programme note saying that he regards Vere as completely weak and cold, to which the Neil Armfield replied arguing that Vere is scrupulously defending the order he believes in. I don't know if it's a conincidence, but Tear played the Novice in the original production of Billy Budd, and Ivan Sharpe has also done The tempter and Nebuchadnezzar in the church parables, also nasty Pears roles. Vere battered by his fear of the threat to civilization as he knows it (understood mainly from Plutarch) could be reduced to betray his humane feelings just as the Novice, brutalized by physical violence, is. Though the main parallelism, brought out mainly by the acting in this performance, and of course the music, is between Vere and Claggart, similar to Starbuck and the evil harpooner in Moby Dick. Christopher Maltman as Billy seemed to be a bit insubstantial. He's a big, handsome chap, and he has a very beautiful voice. But the Christ-like Billy didn't wash -- he simply came over as dim. Maltman is still pretty young, and I don't think he's done a lot of major operatic roles. I was more impressed with his performance of "Can't shake hands" in the Cardiff competition last year than in this production. (He got the Lieder prize.) Maybe he just needs to learn to produce bigger effects in the theatre.