• Mood: okay
• Music: DESERT ISLAND DISKS R4

BILLY BUDD...

It has been a very peculiar week, what  with one thing and another, but I was quite impressed by the new David Alden production of BILLY BUDD at ENO. I've always liked the piece, and this very brutal, unromantic take on it really packed a punch.
The chorus is on such smoking form at the moment, and  the whole thing was just gripping. I particularly liked Matthew Rose's very scary Claggart, Benedict Nelson, a new artist to me, as Billy, and veteran Jonathan Summers' compassionate Mr Redburn. Good thing motodraconiswas able to make it, at short notice. Wasting a ticket would have been criminal.
Here's a tuneful scene from an earlier ENO production I remember well. Made me kinda sad to see it again, though, what with most of the principals  being dead, now. Phillip Langridge was  an absolutely brilliant Vere, Richard Van Allan a fine Claggart, and John Connell, a wonderful singer, actor, and colossally funny guy, who was taken so tragically early, was a marvellous Dansker. *Sigh*

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxQEr11fFDg

This week's DVD was FALL OF THE LOUSE OF USHER, a bit of a late-life  frolic by Ken Russell. It was, sadly, absolute shite. It gave the impression  of being a stoned-out house party at Ken's, and largely improvsed, to very lame  effect. I did rather like the colourful final scene, which looked like a homage to Kenneth Anger. All in all, it was pretty pathetic, though.

*Edit for link error...Great as Claggart's Iago-esque  soliloquy is, this is what I meant to post, a rousing choral moment...