2019–20 Season

Billy Budd

MUSIC BY BENJAMIN BRITTEN

Meet Billy. He's handsome, honest and good.
He's also doomed.

When young Billy is pressed into naval service, the recruit's youth and innocence arouse devotion from the crew. But one commanding officer's dark desires threaten to end Billy's career — for good.

Britten's masterpiece, based on the novella by Herman Melville, returns in a critically acclaimed production from Tony Award-winning director Michael Grandage.

Production New to San Francisco Opera

Meet the Cast

Sung in English with English supertitles

Curious about the Opera?

Pre-Opera Talks

Perfect for newcomers, opera aficionados or anyone in between, our pre-opera talks provide an engaging 25-minute overview of the opera. Free to ticketholders, 55 minutes prior to curtain in the Orchestra section. Speaker: Corey Jamason

Opera Previews

Explore Billy Budd in a 90-minute presentation by Jonathan Khuner. Events held thorughout the Bay Area September 3-5 and cost varies by location. Learn more.

Open Curtain

Have you always wanted to see the inner workings of our stage? At select performances, our curtain is open during intermission and we narrate the live changeover. Date: Sunday, September 15.

Reviews

Saturday’s opening performance…conjured up a mighty and tempestuous fervor in telling this tale.

— San Francisco Chronicle

[William Burden gave a] wondrous performance — robust but uncertain, full of both authority and doubt

— San Francisco Chronicle

Bass-baritone Christian Van Horn was an aptly terrifying Claggart

— San Francisco Chronicle

And in the title role, baritone John Chest made an impressive company debut with a performance of freshness and vitality.

— San Francisco Chronicle

The Opera Orchestra…did full justice to the inventiveness of Britten’s instrumental writing.

— San Francisco Chronicle

The men of the Opera Chorus, led by Ian Robertson, raised a lusty and well-modulated sound as the ship’s crew.

— San Francisco Chronicle

PROGRAM ARTICLES

From Page to Opera Stage

All the world loves a lover, but some ages love lovers more than others do. For example, when Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet was ﬁrst performed in the mid-1590s, it would not have been difficult to ﬁnd members of the audience who took a distinctly jaundiced view of Romeo and Juliet’s deﬁance of family interests and honor in order to satisfy their own romantic desires. Read more.

Unfinished Work

The greatest art, Herman Melville believed, remains unfinished, awaiting posterity to unearth its secrets. Moby-Dick—“the draught of a draught,” he called it—proved his point. Virtually ignored on publication in 1851, it followed most of his novels in dropping out of print, a collective failure that led him to abandon fiction for poetry. Read more.

Setting Sail with Billy Budd

The late New Yorker critic Andrew Porter deemed Billy Budd “musically the richest and most arresting” of Benjamin Britten’s fifteen operas. It is also arguably his most provocative and challenging. While the novella Billy Budd became enshrined in the canon shortly after the belated publication of Melville’s unfinished text in 1924—boosted by a dramatic reappraisal of the author following a long period of neglect—the opera has taken more time to find a place in the repertory. Read more.

Synopsis

A young sailor's innocence arouses devotion among his shipmates, but a commanding officer's suspicions threaten to throw law and order into chaos.

READ COMPLETE SYNOPSIS >

CAST AND CREATIVE

CAST

Captain Vere	William Burden
Billy Budd	John Chest ^*
John Claggart	Christian Van Horn
Mr. Redburn	Philip Horst
Mr. Flint	Wayne Tigges
Mr. Ratcliffe	Christian Pursell
Red Whiskers	Robert Brubaker
Novice	Brenton Ryan
Maintop	Christopher Colmenero ^*
Squeak	Matthew O'Neill
Donald	John Brancy
Bosun	Edward Nelson
First Mate	Sidney Outlaw ^*
Second Mate	Kenneth Overton
Novice's Friend	Eugene Villanueva
Dansker	Philip Skinner
Midshipman	Talinn Hatti ^*
Midshipman	Marvin B. Valdez ^*
Midshipman	Curtis Resnick ^*
Midshipman	Lucas Willcuts ^*
Cabin Boy	Benjamin Drever
Arthur Jones	Hadleigh Adams

PERFORMANCES

Sep 7, 12, 15, 17, 20, 22

CREATIVE

Conductor	Lawrence Renes
Production	Michael Grandage ^*
Revival Stage Director	Ian Rutherford
Production Designer	Christopher Oram ^*
Original Lighting Designer	Paule Constable
Revival Lighting Designer	David Manion ^*
Fight Director	Dave Maier
Chorus Director	Ian Robertson