SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE - REVIEW OF 2025 GLIMMERGLASS FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

The Glimmerglass Festival once again tips its hat to Broadway by producing Sunday In The Park With George, the 1984 musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine.  The musical has won a carload of awards including the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1985.

George of the title is French painter Georges Seurat who painted A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte between 1884 and 1886. The island is in the Seine and was frequented by ordinary Parisians on Sundays and Seurat wanted to capture them promenading there. The plot of the musical is fictional so don’t try to learn anything about Seurat from it.

In the opening scene of the musical, George (John Riddle) tells us what a painter faces: "White, a blank page or canvas. The challenge: bring order to the whole, through design, composition, tension, balance, light and harmony." It is a tall order for the painter who is sitting in front of an easel and sketching his model Dot (Marina Pires). She is bored and frustrated (and very funny) at having to get up early every Sunday and stand still and pose as ordered by George. She is also his mistress. Parisians start arriving on the island.

An Old Lady (Lauretta Bybee) comes with her Nurse (Taylor-Alexis DuPont)and the latter plops her on the ground with some difficulty. The Old Lady turns out to be George’s Mother. The musical has 36 characters played by 17 singers/actors but many of them are inconsequential.

The action picks up and we see numerous vignettes. Artist Jules (Marc Webster) and his wife Yovonne (Claire McCahan) opine that George’s painting has “No life,” Dot befriends Louis, the baker, the two Celestes (Angela Yam and SarahAnn Duffy) argue over who will get the better-looking soldier and so on. George continues painting. 

John Riddle as George with the painting A Sunday Afternoon on
 the Island of La Grande Jatte. 
Photo by Brent DeLanoy/The Glimmerglass Festival

A pair of American tourists Betty (Claire McCahan and Bob Greenberg (Marc Webste) represent one view of the stupid American tourist from the South and they are very funny.

The plot complications recur and develop while George and Dot reach an impasse. She is carrying his child and she wants to marry Louis (Sahel Salam) and go to the United States. Jules sneaks away for a bit of fun with Frieda (Viviana Aurelia Goodwin) and his wife Yvonne finds out about it. Oops. Mayhem breaks out on the island. George takes control, after all it is his painting, and its subjects take their place in A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte which will end up in the Art Institute of Chicago.

That is the first act of the musical with some humour, drama and numerous complications and the appropriate ending with the completion of the work.

But Sondheim and Lapine add a second act that takes place 100 years later, in 1984. with George’s great-grandson also called George. The latter has a machine called "Chromolume #7" and he is showing his great-grandfather’s work with that machine and with the help of his 98-year-old grandmother Marie (Marina Pires), the daughter of Dot. Marie tells us what her mother told her on her deathbed.  Then Marie speaks to her mother in the painting.  Then a vision of Dot appears and by that time I have lost almost all interest in what is going on.

There are excellent performances by the cast. John Riddle is a dedicated, serious minded almost obsessed artist. He is lithe of foot and voice and a distinguished performer. The Americans provide good humour and Julius and Yvonne are notable for their work.

The sets by John Conklin are minimalist but effective. He set the standard for set design for all the season’s operas and deserves a standing ovation.

Director Ethan Heard does a fine job in the first act but I got diminishing returns in the second act that all but killed it for me.

Conductor Michael Ellis Ingram led the Glimmerglass Festival Orchestra for an enthusiastic audience.  
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Sunday in the Park with George by Stephen Sondheim (music and lyrics) and James Lapine (book) is being performed six times until August 17, 2025, at the Alice Busch Opera Theater as part of the Glimmerglass Festival, Cooperstown, New York. More information www.glimmerglass.org

James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture, of The Greek Press, Toronto

THE HOUSE ON MANGO STREET – REVIEW OF 2025 GLIMMERGLASS FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas 

The House On Mango Street is a new opera by Derek Bermel (music) and Sandra Cisneros and Derek Bermel (libretto) It is based on Cisneros’ novel and it had its premiere at the Glimmerglass Festival in July of 2025.

The opera has thirty characters played by 22 actors/singers and is set in a poor, immigrant neighborhood of Chicago. The opera, like the novel, is episodic and deals with an array of events and personal stories in the lives of the residents of the community.

The main character is Esperanza (Mikaela Bennett), a young woman and aspiring writer. The opera opens with her at an old-fashioned typewriter pecking away stories about her life. The novel was published in 1984 and predates computers but the central message of the opera and the novel is Esperanza’s desire to get out of the hellish neighborhood.

Sally (Taylor Alexis-Dupont) is an adolescent who wants to have fun with the boys of the neighborhood but the two sides may have different ideas about fun. Sally, we learn, wants to keep the boys at bay but her real problem is an abusive father that she keeps as a secret.

We have Lucy (Samantha Sosa) and Rachel (Kaylan Hernandez) who are prepared to be Esperanza’s friends forever. But that will only happen if she gives them five dollars to buy a bike. Are they from Sicily?

Cast of House on Mango Street. 
Photo by Kayleen Bertrand/The Glimmerglass Festival.

Geraldo (Angelo Silva), a young, undocumented street vendor has the most tragic end. He is killed in a street scuffle and the people  who witnessed the shooting “saw nothing. 

As I said, the opera has some thirty characters and the plotline becomes  unfocused and confusing. It would be pointless to name them all. The music seems to emanate from numerous styles that I could not recognize. More focus would have been better.

Set Designer John Conklin went to market in his set design. Two brightly lit towers represent two houses or whatever else you want. Extensive use of lighting patterns, projections by Greg Emetaz and by Lighting Designer Amith Chandrashaker provide a dizzying kaleidoscope of effects. Is there such a result as too much of a good thing? We get the life of a poor immigrant community, individual stories from many of them, an array of musical styles  -  it is too much to absorb on the first viewing of a new opera.

Costume Designer Erik Teague provides costumes that represent poor teenagers as well as more elaborate costumes for some who have different tastes. There is no issue with his designs.

Director Chia Patino manages the thirty characters in the two towers and on stage with efficiency. She does a fine job with the street fight and handling the emotional and humorous parts of the opera.   

Conductor Nicole Paiement conducts the Glimmerglass Festival Opera through the many musical styles that the score calls for.

It may seem that I did not enjoy the new opera at all. That is not entirely true and totally unfair for a new and thus unfamiliar work. The Glimmerglass Festival deserves kudos for commissioning the work and Bermel and Cisneros for creating an opera from her novel. There was exceptionally high-quality singing and some of stories were moving, tragic and funny. Unfortunately, I found the work as a whole disappointing.
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The House on Mango Street by Derek Bermel (music) and Sandra Cisneros and Derek Bermel (libretto) is being performed six times until August 16, 2025, at the Alice Busch Opera Theater as part of the Glimmerglass Festival, Cooperstown, New York. More information www.glimmerglass.org

James Karas is the Senior Editor Culture of The Greek Press

THE RAKE’S PROGRESS – REVIEW OF 2025 GLIMMERGLASS FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

 Reviewed by James Karas

The Glimmerglass Festival has staged a powerful and stunning production of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress during the 50^th anniversary season at the Alice Busch Opera Theatre in Cooperstown, New York. The production features a strong cast directed by Eric Sean Fogel and the Glimmerglass Festival Opera and Chorus conducted by Joseph Colaneri.

The Rake’s Progress was a series of paintings by the eighteenth-century English painter Thomas Hogarth who charted the life of Tom Rakewell, “the rake.” Progress is meant ironically because Tom went from the heir to a large fortune to a life of luxury, waste, prostitution and loss of everything including his sanity. The aptly named Anne Trulove, the beautiful woman that he loved and abandoned continued to love him to the bitter end.

Igor Stravinsky was quite taken by the paintings and he decided to turn them into an opera. The libretto based on Hogarth’s paintings was prepared by the august W. H. Auden and Chester Simon Kallman  and was first performed in 1951 in Venice.

The Glimmerglass Festival production features Canadian tenor Adrian Kramer as Tom Rakewell. (The Glimmerglass Festival Program says he is from New York, New York! This is not the time to make mistakes like that.) He is from Toronto). Regardless of his origin, he turns in an energetic performance physically and especially vocally. He fulfills Rakewell’s complex role with superb singing and acting through the many stages of the rake’s life. It was a delight to hear and watch him

The lovely Anne is the antithesis of Rakewell and I pay tribute to soprano Lydia Grindatto. She plays the faithful and pure lover of Rakewell and pursues him until his bitter end. She sings the arias and duets with beauty and splendid vocal finesse. She makes the most difficult phrase appear simple, natural, and beautiful.

 

Aleksey Bogdanov (Nick Shadow), Adrian Kramer (Tom Rakewell)

Photo © The Glimmerglass Festival | Kayleen Bertrand

And we have the Mephistopheles of the opera, Nick Shadow (baritone Aleksey Bogdanov). He has the attire and manners of an English gentleman and tells the lazy lout Rakewell that he has inherited a large fortune. He invites him to enjoy the life that money can provide and Rakewell follows him to London to a “better life” in a brothel. Bogdanov has a sonorous and convincing baritone voice and manages to control Rakewell to the bitter end when he asks him for his soul in payment for his services. A marvelous performance by Bogdanov.

The first step that Rakewell takes on his way down is at the brothel where he meets Baba the Turk (mezzo-soprano Deborah Nansteel). She has a big voice and a pronounced presence on the stage. She may be considered nasty but she has, as they say, about members of her profession (and I mean prostitutes and not singers), a heart of gold. Baba marries Rakewell but when Anne shows up, she speaks well of him. I have no doubt that Deborah too has a heart of gold and she gives a grand performance.

Anne’s father Trulove (bass Marc Webster) sings with gorgeous sonority and sensitivity as the concerned parent who finds a job for the wastrel Rakewell. He has a relatively small roll but he makes the most of it. Well done.

The set by John Conklin is minimalist and unrealistic. The lighting by Robert Wierzel features generous use of projections illustrating certain events. They do the job. In the opening scene we see a cutout of the Venus de Milo statue, the one of the goddess of love with the missing arms. It disappears when Rakewell goes astray but at the end of the opera he thinks he is Adonis, the beautiful youth that Venus loved passionately.

Director Fogel handles the complex plot and characters with an eye to detail and drama. He gives us a coherent and splendidly done production.

Colaneri conducts the Glimmerglass Festival Opera and Chorus through Stravinsky’s multifaceted and complicated score brilliantly. We are left with a production to remember.
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The Rake’s Progress by Igor Stravinsky is being performed six times until August 15, 2025, at the Alice Busch Opera Theater as part of the Glimmerglass Festival, Cooperstown, New York. Tickets and information at www.glimmerglass.org/

James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture, of The Greek Press 

TOSCA – REVIEW OF 2025 GLIMMERGLASS FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

 Reviewed by James Karas

The Glimmerglass Festival is celebrating its 50^th anniversary season and that speaks of its longevity and the high quality of its productions. For those who have not been there, it is held in the Alice Busch Opera Theatre on the shores of Lake Otsego in upstate New York. Doesn’t ring a bell? How about it is next door to Cooperstown, the home of the Baseball Hall of Fame? That’s better.

 This year the Festival offers four operas among other events. The operas represent the usual eclectic choice this year of the effervescent Artistic and General Director Rob Ainsley. Puccini’s Tosca is the staple. Sunday In The Park With George is the American classic musical. Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress is the adventurous 20^th century classic  and The House on Mango Street with music by Derek Merkel and libretto by Sandra Cisneros and Bermel is a new opera.

Director Louisa Proske and Designer John Conklin offer a unique, imaginative and brilliant production of Puccini’s masterpiece. They have their own take on the opera and despite some aspects that may strike us as unorthodox or head-scratching the result is a marvelous production.

First, the singers. You can’t have a Tosca without a highly qualified soprano. American soprano Michelle Bradley delivers a stunning performance in the lead role. She has a big, brilliant and expressive voice that simply knocks you over. She can be the jealous woman who goes crazy over the idea that her lover Cavaradossi is painting another beauty, a passionate lover in her duets with the same man and a fury when confronted by a sadistic would-be rapist. She can belt out her phrases and express tender memories as in “Vissi d’arte”.    

The other essential part of the opera is the sadistic Scarpia sung here by American bass-baritone Greer Grimsley. Scarpia relishes his lust and tells us he prefers force over consent. He is a rapist. He has the great scene with Tosca where he tries to seduce her and rape her. He thunders his joy at torturing people and at his absolute control over them. We watch with delight as Tosca stabs him to death on the bed in his office where he had a woman before Tosca arrived.

 

Greer Grimsley as Baron Scarpia, Yongzhao Yu as 

Mario Cavaradossi, and Kellan Dunlap as Spoletta. 

Photo Credit: Kayleen Bertrand/The Glimmerglass Festival

American tenor Yongzhao Yu sings a fine Cavaradossi. He sings a sound E lucevan le stelle but he is out sung in his duets with Tosca.

Proske and Conklin put their own stamp on the production. As the lights go on, the set appears and it seems that the monumental interior of the Church of St. Andrea where the first act is set is being renovated. There are tarps and scaffolding all around except for the back of a large easel and a small Madonna on a pedestal. We never see what Cavaradossi is painting. The tarps do fall for the Te Deum at the end of the act but there is no spectacular splendor.

The second act is in Scarpia’s presumably opulent office. The furniture is ordinary to cheap and there is a bed with a women getting dressed after having finished the obvious. There is a table, a bathroom with a shower and a cheap desk. The torture room is in the back.

All the furniture from Scarpia’s office is removed for the third act which is supposed to take place atop the Castel Sant’Angelo. It does not. There is no parapet for Tosca to jump off and Proske solves the problem with a gun. Tosca shoots herself.

We may miss the Zeffirellian grandeur but surprisingly the changes do not take away from the drama and effectiveness of the production. There are many nice touches. When the sacristan Sergio Martinez sees Cavaradossi’s painting he is startled and when he sweeps the floor, he pushes the dirt under the tarps. Funny.

For the Shepherd’s Song, Proske develops a scene with a small angel, a priest and a ritual with the Madonna (I think) appearing. It is cute and necessary for the stage to be cleared for  the following scene.

Proske along with Conklin gives us an original and stunning production of an old chestnut.

Conductor Joseph Colaneri leads the Glimmerglass Festival Orchestra and Chorus to a rousing performance that earns them all a standing ovation.

The Glimmerglass Festival strikes a significant note for freedom and democracy. The cover of its impressive 158-page program shows an unprepossessing picture of a wall. In fact, it is the space where Cavaradossi will be killed and Tosca commits suicide. The photograph on the program is not an accident. Tosca is about political oppression, abuse of power and murder and torture of people.

Before the opera begins, we read projected on a screen the words Prof. Timothy Snyder about tyranny. I do not recall the exact text but these words from him give you the idea: We are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. He is talking about America today and the Festival shows guts where many Americans cave in to despotism.

Bravo Glimmerglass Festival.

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Tosca by Giacomo Puccini is being performed ten times until August 16, 2025, at the Alice Busch Opera Theater as part of the Glimmerglass Festival Cooperstown, New York. Tickets and information www.glimmerglass.org

James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture, of The Greek Press, Toronto 

LOUISE – REVIEW OF 2025 AIX-EN-PROVENCE FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

 Reviewed by James Karas

Louise is an opera by Gustave Charpentier that has the distinction of being the first opera of the twentieth century or so they tell us. Charpentier (1860-1956) had a long life but wrote only one viable opera. It was successful for a while, but it has fallen out of favour, and one is grateful to the Aix Festival for producing it. 

It is a love story that branches out into family dynamics, social commentary especially about women’s rights and provides a vignette of moral standards of the time.

Louise (Elsa Dreisig) is in love with Julien (Adam Smith), but she is caught in the social mores and family traps of the era and there are few choices for working class girls in late 19^th century France. She wants to start a new life with her lover in Paris, the symbol of freedom, but her parents do not approve of her leaving them. She rebels and does move to Paris. but the breakup with her parents and her choice of work as a seamstress are not completely successful. In the end she does find happiness with her lover and with life in Paris, but she is wracked with guilt about her decision.

In the midst of enjoying the pleasures of freedom, love and parties, her mother (Sophie Koch) shows up and breaks up the party by telling Louise that her father is not well. Louise returns home to the tense and unhappy atmosphere and eventually she finds the strength to break the chains of family pressure and morality of her class and leaves her father and his curses.

Despite its broader tentacles, this is a sappy story, but Charpentier gives us a lot more than that and makes Louise an enjoyable work. He adds a couple of dozen characters from Louise’s place of work and Parisian society and creates a celebration with Louise’s coworkers as well as street parties with a colorful and fascinating cross section of working-class Paris.

It includes a crowd of pleasure seekers, street vendors and a night prowler who calls himself The Pleasure of Paris (played colourfully by Adam Smith). Soon Louise’s co-workers join the festive crowd, and all present a vivid and joyous scene in the opera. In the meantime, Julien is serenading Louise and her co-workers tease and even ridicule her, but in the end the two lovers leave together. 

Scene from Louise, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence 2025 

Photo: © Monika Rittershaus

The two lovers escape and move into their own apartment and Louise sings the opera’s most famous aria “Depuis le jour” about how wonderful life is, about being in love, about her first kiss, about life in Paris. It is beautifully done by Dreisig.

Nicolas Courjal starts as a tired, and brooding father who adores his daughter but ends up as a nasty man who cannot let his daughter grow up. Sophie Koch starts as a tyrannical mother, overprotective of her daughter but her character matures and, in the end, she ends up breaking away from the patriarchal family. The adoring father does not appear to accept change.

The four singers who handle the immediate family show vocal beauty without being stressed with pyrotechnics. The crowd scenes are handled beautifully, and they provide a much-needed balance to the family squabble and the need for the young lovers to break away from the apron strings of the traditional family of the day and strike a note of freedom and of course give us Paris as a symbol of liberty.

The set by Etienne Pluss consists of the stage of the Théâtre de l’Archevêchê being turned into a large well-appointed room. There are couches lined up at the back with large windows above that. This could be a huge waiting room, and it does not represent the home of Louise’s working-class family. The basic structure serves as the humble apartment of the lovers and her workplace as well as the street party. The windows are shuttered and closed to indicate change of venue, but the changes are subtle, and we prefer to watch the action rather than the set changes.

In the end this production of Louise expertly directed by Christof Loy presents us with a coherent, well-done work that deserves more attention and productions than it is getting. Loy and dramaturg Louis Geisler add a nice touch at the end of the opera. Louise’s mother exits with her when she leaves her family home. The mother has seen the light. The father has not.

Giacomo Sagripanti conducts the Orchestra and Chorus of the Opera of Lyon in a vivacious performance of a highly enjoyable night at the opera.

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Louise by Gustave Charpentier was performed a total of four times until July 13, 2025, at the Théâtre de l’Archevêchê, Aix-en-Provence, France. www.festival-aix.com

James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture, of The Greek Press

THE NINE JEWELLED DEER – REVIEW OF 2025 AIX-EN-PROVENCE FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

The Nine Jewelled Deer is the intriguing title of an opera offered by the Aix-en-Provence Festival. It is by Sivan Eldar, Ganavya Doraiswamy and Lauren Groff who are unknown to me, adding mystery to intrigue. It played at Luma Arles for three performances and that required a bus ride from Aix-en-Provence to Arles. It also performed in the Théâtre du Jeu de Paume in Aix-en-Provence for an additional three times.

What is it all about? A program note gives us the basic elements of the new work whose premiere we are about to witness. I can do no better than to quote it:

A thousand-year-old cave painting in China depicting a drowning man saved by a marvellous deer whose existence he must not reveal; a cramped kitchen in modern-day India where an old woman takes in victims of life’s misfortunes and heals them through song; the garden of a former prostitute, where a monk teaches the secrets of “Enlightenment” – that supreme state of knowledge and compassion.

The opera is the work of Sivan Eldar, a composer and instrumentalist with broad experience. Her biographical information states that she started as a pianist and vocalist and has broadened her interests into electric and electronic instruments and more. Ganavya Doraiswamy was raised in Tamil Nadu, South India where she learned singing, harmonium and classical Indian dance. She further studied spirituality “with a focus on freeing individuals from power relationships and from identity ascription” according to her bio.

The performers are Ganavya Doraiswamy and Anura Sairam, vocalists, with   Nurit Stark, violaist and violinist, Sonia Wieder-Atherton, cellist, Dana Barak, clarinettist, Hayden Chisolm, saxophonist, Rajna Swaminathan, percussionist and Augustin Muller playing electronic – Ircam.  

Scene from The Nine Jewelled Deer. 

Festival d'Aix-en-Provence 2025 © Ruth Walz

The performance takes place in a large hall in Arles where seats are installed on one side, and we watch the action on the ground level in front of us. This is not a theatre in a traditional form. The players named above open the show with one of them asking us to sing a one-phrase refrain in Tamil as she sings the song. Most of the audience joins in what sounds like a beautiful, perhaps haunting, prayer or invocation

The names of jewels are projected in English on a screen. DIAMOND, PEARL, SAPHIRE, CORAL, EMERALD etc. with comments about each of them by one of the vocalists but I do not know who. The instrumentalists play music that varies from melodious to dissonant, to jazz and such that I cannot put my finger on all the types that they cover.

The spoken text and the songs are in English or in Tamil. There is one section that lasts for about half an hour where a grandmother tells a story to a young listener and then the listener responds to the story, all in Tamil without surtitles.

The story of the drowning man and the deer that saved his life is told. The writers are careful not to identify the deer as a stag or a doe so as not to appear sexist. The pronoun “it” would serve perfectly without the necessity of any further explanation.

The blurb quoted above contains promises that may all have been broached but I did not get them all and some may have been in Tamil. The saved man keeps his promise to the marvelous deer and did not disclose who saved him from drowning until the King who is trying to find the deer because his Queen wants it, offers a reward including some virgins and the poor saved man breaks his promise and reveals his saviour. The King finds the deer and is about to shoot it with his bow but the arrow melts and the deer is saved.

The show stretches the definition or at least my narrow idea of opera but that is of no importance. New and innovative works are not just desirable but necessary. The Nine Jewelled Deer is based on ancient Indian tales that relate stories of Budha’s previous lives and incarnation. The opera is based on one of the numerous Jataka Tales that are, unfortunately, unfamiliar to me. There are projections of paintings during the performance and unfortunately, I could not understand their meaning.

The production is directed by the wild, wildly imaginative and brilliant Peter Sellars. I do not expect to understand what he is doing on a first (at least) viewing.
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THE NINE JEWELLED DEER by Sivan Eldar, Ganavya Doraiswamy and Lauren Groff, directed by Peter Sellars, visual artist Julie Mehretu played at Luma, Arles and at the Théâtre du Jeu de Paume in Aix-en-Provence from July 6 to 14, 2025 as part of the Aix-en-Provence Festival.  

James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture of The Greek Press 

THE STORY OF BILLY BUDD, SAILOR - REVIEW OF 2025 AIX-EN-PROVENCE FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

 Reviewed by James Karas

Billy Budd is a fictitious character created by Herman Melville in an unfinished novella known as Billy Budd, Sailor. It drew much literary attention competing with the author’s much more famous Moby Dick. Benjamin Britten was drawn to the story and composed an opera based on a libretto in four acts by E.M. Forster and Eric Crozier that opened in 1951. It was rewritten as a two-act opera that premiered in 1960.

Like all good stories, Billy Budd is based on a simple story that opens much more when pondered. Billy Budd is a young, innocent, decent and handsome young man who is “impressed” (taken by force) as a sailor on The Indomitable, a warship. He encounters decency and evil, hatred and malice and eventually is convicted and sentenced to death in accordance with articles of war.

Oliver Leith did the musical adaptation. Ted Huffman did the stage direction, adaptation, costume design and accessories. The two have syncopated Britten’s work into a chamber opera that ten singers who perform all the roles play all the instruments in the intimacy of the Théâtre du Jeu de Paume in Aix-de-Provence. They deliver a captivating 140 minutes of opera that is emotionally intense and gripping.

The story begins with Captain Edward Fairfax Vere (Christopher Sokolowski who also plays Squeak), a naval officer and man of culture, as an old man recalling the events of his life, struggling with his conscience and remembering the story of Billy Budd. We then go back to 1797 on the deck of The Indomitable where the decent Billy Budd encounters the ship’s Master-at-arms John Claggart (Joshua Bloom who also plays Dansker), an evil man. This is where we go beyond the story of one man but are forced to think about good and evil, justice and injustice and innocence and corruption. 

Scene from The Story of Billy Budd, Sailor. 

Photo: © Jean-Louis Fernandez

Claggart plots to destroy Billy Budd, and he plots against him including attempting to bribe him into starting a mutiny. He brings Budd in front of Vere on trumped up charges and the innocent sailor is so shocked that he cannot utter a word. Billy Budd has a terrible stammer and is unable to speak under pressure. Vere is forced to condemn Budd to death, and he is hanged on the ship’s deck in a terrifically staged scene that that leaves you stunned. 

Baritone Ian Rucker as Billy Budd vocally exudes the innocence, eagerness and humanity of the young sailor. He knows that he is innocent even if in a moment of anger, he struck Claggart who died from the blow. The punishment for striking an officer is death and Billy Budd takes the inevitable punishment with grace. A wonderful performance. 

The venomous Claggart is performed with exceptional malice by bass Joshua Bloom. He struck me as a man with motiveless malignity, a description someone coined about the villainous Iago, Othello’s destroyer.  

Tenor Sokolowski’s Captain Vere presents perhaps the most interesting character because he represents more than just the events of 1797. He straddles the moral code of the warship with the knowledge of later reflection of what he did. Did he lack the moral backbone to refuse to execute an innocent man? Is he trying to salve his conscience in old age? It is a subject for discussion that Sokolowski sings so eminently well in his performance of the role.

The musicians deserve a special bow. Finnegan Downie Dear, conductor and keyboards, Richard Gowers, keyboards, Siwan Rhys, keyboards and George Barton, percussion. They are on stage behind the singers ready to lend a hand, when necessary,
A superb syncopation and presentation of Benjamin Britten’s opera.
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The Story of Billy Budd, Sailor  by Ted Huffman and Oliver Leith after Benjamin Britten played four times until July 10, 2024, on various dates at the Théâtre du Jeu de Paume, Aix-en-Provence, France. www.festival-aix.com

 James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture, of The Greek Press