Billy Budd
Britten
Lyric Opera of Kansas City
1999
Photo: Erhard Rom
…unquestionably one of the most artistically fulfilling and viscerally
exciting productions of any opera I have encountered in a long time. One could almost taste the salt
spray in the air …one of those rare productions where every element came together inone perfectly
coordinated, combined effort. At times the aura of menace andtension was almost palpable. … Nearly
every vocalist demonstrated theatrical training as well, resulting inan evening of great theatre
enhanced by the power of Britten's wonderfully evocative score. It was a night to remember and a
production worthy of any operatic stage in the world. more...
…superbly cast and provocatively staged… Lyric has a real find in stage
director Tim Ocel, who in an opera very much about human ambiguities has plumbed new depths of
nuance. more...
Billy Budd
Lyric Opera of Kansas City, 1999
…a gripping Billy Budd. Stage director Tim Ocel
imagined the whole opera through Vere's memory—hence the stylized unit set (by Erhard Rom), with its
battered, upturned deck, and the distant, silent confrontations between Vere and Billy ... Ocel played
down Claggart's attraction to Billy to focus, instead, on a mysterious magnetism between the young
sailor and Vere. Having the hanged Billy swinging in the background, in front of a huge moon, made
Vere's final soliloquy almost unbearably poignant. more...