THE STORY OF BILLY BUDD, SAILOR

Told over and over again from port to port, the story of Billy Budd is an enigma: how is it possible that this handsome sailor, admired by all, should have ended up a criminal, hanging from the yardarm of his ship? Like a mythical scroll that elicits endless comment, Melville’s unfinished novella has produced a fascinating fog of meaning. In the story itself, the mists of war invading the North Sea obscure to the point of obliteration the very ideas of law and society in the West; and they also mingle fatally with the nebula of homosexual desire which in turn destroys and saves the protagonists – that poor sample of humanity lost on the high seas. For Ted Huffman and Oliver Leith, condensing Britten’s opera by reinterpreting its narrative and sound content means re-focusing their attention on the essential: reconnecting with its folk roots, with the eternal sailor’s ballad; questioning the queer fog that floats down from Melville and Britten to us, turning into a political and metaphysical meditation on what constitutes humanity, on what cements or destroys a community.