At the opera: Herman Melvilles obsession with obsessed men – TheReporter.Com

In all the arts, comparisons are inevitable to previous work by an artist. It can be a painting, a sculpture, a film or documentary, a symphony, an opera, a pop tune, a jazz score, a musical, a ballet, etc., or the composition, staging, interpretation or direction of it or all its myriad elements.

And so, after seeing and hearing the latest staging of Benjamin Brittens opera Billy Budd at San Francisco Opera, which ends today at the War Memorial Opera House, I longed for the companys production during its 2004-05 season. It starred in the title role baritone Nathan Gunn, giving a poignant reading of part, with conductor Donald Runnicles drawing out the lush music for the orchestra, one of largest in the composers canon.

Be that as it may, the new production directed by Michael Grandage, the score interpreted by conductor Lawrence Renes, and baritone John Chest in the title role, lacked, as the curtain came down three hours after it first went up, the engaging heft of Willy Deckers production 15 years ago. I recall audience members here and there sniffling or wiping tears off their cheeks. That didnt happen this time around.

Still, resonating in brief moments only, this mediocre production from the Glyndebourne Festival shares with nearly every opera a few things worth noting.

Based on Herman Melvilles 1891 novella, an unfinished work of fiction that wasnt discovered until long after authors death, Billy Budd is generally regarded as one of the 20th centurys finest operas, with a libretto written by E.M. Forster (A Room with a View and Howards End fame) and Eric Crozier.

The story unfolds aboard the HMS Indomitable during the French Wars of 1797, as the ship enters enemy waters. The lowest-ranking seamen are in perpetual conflict. Billy, a handsome young man press-ganged from The Rights o Man merchant ship, comes aboard and catches the envious eye of the evil master-at-arms, John Claggart, and the fate of Billy, whom Claggart hates and trumps up suspicion that Billy may lead the crew in mutiny, is tragically sealed.

The score is typical Britten in its grand opera ambitions, marked by massed choral scenes, elaborate ensembles, and emotional solo outbursts. The music, by turns lyrical and dissonant, explores the battle between good and evil, of law and order on the high seas. But in many ways the story and the music, drawing out the homoerotic subject matter, more accurately serve as a psychological examination of innocence inexorably overwhelmed by a twisted envy.

What this story shares with Melvilles greatest work, Moby-Dick, is the story of a man obsessed with some idea or fantasy beyond himself, not the great white whale of the novel most of us read in high school but, in the shorter work of fiction, the repressed sexual attraction of an older man for a much younger one.

Tenor William Burden leads the all-male cast in the role of Edward Fairfax Vere, the ships captain. Bass-baritone Christian Van Horn portrays Claggart.

On Christopher Orams massive, gray-and-black hulk of an 18th-century fighting ships innards, stretching from stage wing to the other, Burden kicks off the opera with Veres prologue. As a retired ships captain, he looks back over his life, the good and the less so, finding always some flaw in the good that has come his way. His voice was adequate for the role, sounding reflective and somewhat recessive as a man who eventually must sentence Billy to hang. The haunting motif during the prologue, a sinuous figure that moves between a major and minor chord, serves as something of a repeated theme, moral ambiguity, throughout the opera.

If there was a redeeming element of this production, it is Van Horn, tall and dominating in his all-black naval uniform, a stovepipe hat atop his head, his vibrato chilling, especially when he reveals his attraction for Billy and, later, when he bribes one sailor to incite Billy to mutiny.

Vere at first scoffs at the notion that Billy could lead a mutiny, but agrees to hear the circumstances, which, in a scene in the captains quarters, leads a falsely accused Billy to strike Claggart in the head, killing him.

There are some poignant moments when Chest, his fate inescapable, sings his ballad, Look! Through the port comes the moonshine astray! And alone in another scene, he sings, Ive sighted a sail in the storm, the far-shining sail. Sadly, just before he is hanged, Chest, in deep admiration of the captain, cries out, Starry Vere, God bless you!

At operas end, Burdens Vere, a much older man remembering the court-martial, sings, I could have saved him. He knew it. But he has saved me. I was lost in the infinite sea, but Ive sighted a sail in the storm, the far-shining sail. At that moment, the operas main musical theme of tonal ambiguity returns, symbolizing the sometimes moral uncertainty of life.

The San Francisco Opera production of Billy Budd continues its last performance at 2 p.m. Sunday at the War Memorial Opera, 301 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco. Tickets range from $26 to $398 (with standing-room tickets $10 on day of show only at the box office). The companys production of Gounods Romeo and Juliet continues to Oct. 1, followed by Mozarts The Marriage of Figaro, Oct. 11 to Nov. 1; Puccinis Manon Lescaut, Nov. 8 to 26; and Humperdincks Hansel & Gretel, Nov. 15 to Dec. 7.

For more information, visit http://www.sfopera.com or telephone (415) 864-3330.

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At the opera: Herman Melvilles obsession with obsessed men - TheReporter.Com