Benjamin Brittan’s treatment of Herman Melville’s final novel “Billy Budd” is this week’s Sunday Opera (7/21 3:00 p.m.) from London’s Royal Opera House. This tale of obsession and remorse is played out against the perilous life on the 18th century warship Indomitable. The good-natured Billy is the object of scorn of the master-at-arms Claggart who goes out of his way to make sure that Billy is destroyed much to the remorse of the captain, Edward Vere, who realizes that he could have saved Billy had he paid attention.
In this Covent Garden cast we’ll hear Jacques Imbrailo as Billy Budd, Brindley Sherratt as the treacherous Claggart, and Toby Spence as Captain Vere. Ivor Bolton conducts. Stay tuned after the opera for more music from Britten including his Simple Symphony for Strings and Piano Concerto, Op. 13 which will include the original 1938 third movement.
