Quotes & Sayings About Billy Budd

As any opera fan knows, lawyers and judges do not fare well in most operas. Just consider the productions of 'Andrea Chenier,' 'Aida, Norma,' 'Billy Budd,' 'Peter Grimes,' 'The Crucible,' 'Lost in the Stars,' 'The Marriage of Figaro,' 'The Makropulos Case' and Wagner's 'Ring' cycle. Around 1810, the theme of justice emerged in opera. — Karen DeCrow

Knowing constitutional law helps one at the opera. The trial in 'Billy Budd,' as example, invokes the fugitive slave clause of the U.S. Constitution. — Karen DeCrow

That was the day I knew. It was as if Rolls met Royce, Black met Decker, Oliver met Stan, TinTin met Snowy, Marks met Spencer... he was to me what Patracolus was to Achilles, Hylas to Hercules, Enkidoe to Gilgamesh, Jonathan to David, Bosie to Oscar Wilde, Rimbaud to Verlaine. He was my Billy Budd, all the holy multitude of Thebes, Jasjoe mixed with Tadzio... — Tom Bouden

When I tested for Billy Budd, I had that kind of confidence that comes with the certainty that you're not going to get something. I was very rough around the edges. — Terence Stamp

And yet a child's utter innocence is but its blank ignorance, and the innocence more or less wanes as intelligence waxes. — Herman Melville

First, my frame of reference for the Britten opera shifted. I'd always thought of Britten's approach in Death in Venice as another exploration of the plight of the individual whose aspirations are at odds with those of the surrounding community: his last opera returning to the themes of Peter Grimes. As I read and listened and thought, however, Billy Budd came to seem a more appropriate foil for Death in Venice. — Philip Kitcher