Search

Want to keep up-to-date with the latest news from EMI Classics?

Please sign up to our free newsletter below

EMI & VIrgin Classics on facebook
EMI Classics Official YouTube Channel
EMI & Virgin Classics || Store
EMI Masters
EMI - The Home of Opera
CD Releases

Britten: Billy Budd

Nathan Gunn, Ian Bostridge, Gidon Saks, Neal Davies, Jonathan Lemalu, Matthew Rose / London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Daniel Harding

Series: Virgin Classics

Released: 15/09/2008

Cat. No: 5190392

Format: CD

Number Of Discs: 3

Barcode: 5099951903923

After the award-winning recording of Britten’s Turn of the Screw, released on Virgin Classics in 2002, Daniel Harding and Ian Bostridge meet again around Britten in his great masterpiece, Billy Budd. This new recording is a new asset to the label, which has planned a complete Britten opera cycle. The opera, in its definitive 2-act version, was recorded during 2 concert performances at the Barbican Hall on 7th & 9th December 2007. As principal guest conductor, Daniel Harding conducts the London Symphony Orchestra. The all-male cast boasts, along with Ian Bostridge as Captain Vere, American baritone Nathan Gunn in the role of Billy Budd, and Israeli bass-baritone, Gidon Saks, portraying the fiendish Claggart. EMI artist Jonathan Lemalu also contributes to the cast. “Billy Budd is one of Britten’s greatest masterpieces, containing three of his major operatic roles. Set amid the claustrophobia and cruelties of a battleship in Nelson’s time, it shows the ruthless destruction of good-hearted able seaman Budd by sadistic master-at-arms Claggart, and the mental conflicts of intellectual but weak-willed Captain Vere, who is powerless to prevent it. The music is suitably gripping, by turns intense and exciting, and full of the insights and inspirations typical of its composer." www.barbican.org.uk
Tracklisting

Billy Budd

Disc 1

Prologue 'I am an old man' (Vere)

Pull, my bantams! Pull, my sparrow-legs!...Who did that? (First Mate et al)

Guard boat! Indomitable! (Maintop et al)

First man forward! (Claggart et al)

Your name? - Billy Budd, sir (Claggart/Billy/First Lieutenant/Sailing Master)

Billy Budd, king of the birds (Billy/Sailing Master/First Lieutenant/Ratcliffe)

Disc 2

I heard your honour! (Claggart/Squeak/Novice's Friend)

Come along kid! Come along! (Novice's Friend/Novice/Chorus)

Christ! The poor chap, the poor little runt! (Billy/Dansker/Red Whiskers/Donald)

What's that? What's those whistles? (Billy/Donald/Claggart/First Mate/Second Mate/Bosun)

Starry Vere we call him (Donald/Billy/Chorus/Red Whiskers/Dansker/Bosun)

Boy! - Yes sir! (Vere/Boy)

Gentlemen, the King! (Vere/First Lieutenant/Sailing Master)

Ay, at Spithead the men may have had their grievances (Vere/Sailing Master/First Lieutenant)

We are, sir. Claggart is an able one...Land on the port bow, sir (First Lieutenant/Vere/Sailing Master/Ratcliffe)

Blow her away, Blow her to Hilo (Red Whiskers/Chorus/Billy/Donald/Dansker)

We're off to Samoa (Donald/Chorus/Red Whiskers/Billy/Donald/Dansker)

Hi! You...a...a... (Billy et al)

Over the water, over the ocean (Chorus/Claggart)

Come here, Remember your promise (Claggart/Novice)

Billy!...Hist! Billy Budd! (Novice/Billy)

Dansker, old friend, glad to see you! (Billy/Dansker)

Disc 3

I don't like the look of the mist (Vere/First Lieutenant)

With great regret I must disturb your honour (Claggart/Vere)

Deck ahoy! Enemy sail on starboard bow! (Maintop et al)

Who'll volunteer to beard 'em in the smoke? (Vere et al.)

There you are again, Master-at-arms (Vere/Claggart/Boy)

O this cursed mist (Vere/First Lieutenant/Sailing Master/Ratcliffe)

Claggart, John Claggart, beware! I'm not so easily deceived (Vere/Billy)

Master-at-arms and foretopman, I speak to you both (Vere/Claggart/Billy)

God o' mercy! (Vere/Boy)

Gentlemen, William Budd here has killed the Master-at-arms (Vere/First Lieutenant/Sailing Master/Ratcliffe)

William Budd, you are accused... (First Lieutenant/Vere/Billy)

Poor fellow, who could save him? (First Lieutenant/Sailing Master/Ratcliffe)

I accept their verdict (Vere)

Look! Through the port comes the moon-shine astray! (Billy)

Here! Baby! (Dansker/Billy)

And farewell to ye, old Rights o' Man! (Billy)

Interlude

"According to the Articles of War..." (All except Vere)

Down all hands! And see that they go! (First Lieutenant et al)

We committed his body to the deep (Vere)

Videoclips
Ian Bostridge Gidon Saks Nathan Gunn - Britten Billy Budd

Concert Dates

29th October '10Ian BostridgeBarbican Hall, London

Click here to book tickets.

13th November '10Ian BostridgeWigmore Hall, London

Click here to book tickets.


Sign-Up

Want to keep up-to-date with the latest news from Ian Bostridge, ?

Please sign up below

Press Reviews

'Bostridge's voice, always smooth and luxuriant, is in its prime, with an extraordinary strength and flexibility of colour. And he's a storyteller and actor par excellence, with a massive emotional range.' - Evening Standard following Barbican concert performances: 7th & 9th December 2007

Add your review