Billy Budd - Lyon Opera house (2026) - Billy Budd - Opéra national de Lyon (2026)

Description

New production.
Co-production with the Hanover State Opera.

"Richard Brunel is familiar with Britten's music, having successfully staged Albert Herring at the Opéra-Comique in March 2009. He revealed its cruelty and humor. With Billy Budd, he returns to themes that particularly interest him, such as the individual versus society, justice and injustice. To do this, he underlines the urgency of Vere's situation in the prologue and epilogue, as he is summoned before the human and divine tribunal, before the tribunal of spectators. To defend and justify himself, he must construct a gigantic mental theater, a theater of reconstruction. The history of the past is not a simple flashback; it is an argumentative machine in which the responsibility of each of the characters in this story is examined and reevaluated. For Vere, it is a question of accusing Claggart and revealing its darkness and cruelty; of showing himself, on the contrary, in the best light, in the guise of the beloved captain who leads his troops to victory; to prove that the threat of mutiny alone justifies his decision to convene a military tribunal, against the practices that would have led him to prioritize Billy's imprisonment pending trial on land; to portray the accused as a willing victim, sharing the same analysis as his commander and sacrificing himself for the collective good.

Through this reconstruction, a world will be invented before the spectators' eyes: that of a wandering vessel, a ghost ship, emerging from the fog to retrace the history of an isolated, highly organized, and hierarchical community, in which the individual, especially when forcibly conscripted and therefore not there by choice, is crushed and manipulated. The challenge for the production is therefore to work to bring these two dimensions to life: the unified chorus, in a common project of combat and revolt, and the chorus fragmented into multiple small individual stories. With, in the background, questions that still resonate today: should we prioritize individual or collective interest ? Is the violent reaction of the group in the face of injustice legitimate ?"

More information is available on the official website of the opera house.