Billy Budd, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, East Sussex, June 2026
July 2026
The libretto of Billy Budd is by the novelist E. M. Forster and Britten’s longtime collaborator Eric Crozier. It does exquisite work in creating atmosphere, revealing character and propelling the story through music. This twentieth-century opera stands in marked contrast to the works of Puccini and Verdi, in which melody and vocal line often announce themselves as the central force. Britten, by contrast, seems compelled above all by narrative and psychological pressure. Billy Budd is what might be called a book opera: its power lies in the fusion of narrative, psychology and score.
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