BRITTEN

Billy Budd

 

Billy Budd                      Nathan Gunn baritone

Captain Vere                  Ian Bostridge tenor

Claggart                        Gidon Saks bass

Mr Redburn                    Neal Davies baritone

Mr Flint                          Jonathan Lemalu baritone

Lieutenant Ratcliffe         Matthew Rose bass

Red Whiskers                 Alasdair Elliott tenor

Donald                          Daniel Teadt baritone

Dansker                        Matthew Best bass

Novice                           Andrew Kennedy tenor

Squeak                         Andrew Tortise tenor

First Mate                      Adam Green baritone

Bosun                           Mark Stone baritone

Second Mate/Gunner's Mate        Darren Jeffery baritone

Maintop                         Andrew Staples tenor

Novice's Friend/Arthur Jones       Roderick Williams baritone

 

Nathan Gunn, Ian Bostridge, Gidon Saks, Neal Davies, Jonathan Lemalu, Matthew Rose

London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus / Daniel Harding

 

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 the 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

 

'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

 

Virgin 5190392