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In Reply to: RE: Really? A "Facist" opera popular in communist Russia? posted by Rick W on July 14, 2015 at 16:49:54
Yes, I was serious.
The source was an article in IIRC The Atlantic some time between 1979 and 1982--unfortunately, I am sure I de-cluttered that issue years ago, and The Atlantic's online coverage starts in 1995.
I meant fascist in terms of the fasces, which is symbolic of all the elements of society being basically uniform like rods in a bundle, and all acting as one.
Perhaps a better characterization would have been that "Billy Budd" was popular with the Soviet cultural establishment as an example of what a work of art should be.
Billy Budd is innocent and idealistic, but he has a stammer (often times wrongly interpreted as a sign of low intelligence) and not being able to defend himself verbally, he lashes out at an AUTHORITY FIGURE and kills him.
So, Lesson No. 1 from "Billy Budd" is that even if you are in the right and the authority figure is in the wrong, YOU MUST DIE. The Soviets in effect said, "That works for us."
But it gets even better.
Upon learning that the crew is willing to mutiny to save his life, Budd declines. This sends the message that the proper duty of a citizen is to preserve the established social order, even if it means that the citizen will be wrongfully executed.
I don't have the libretto handy, but, before he is hanged, does not Budd in effect say "Thanks, I needed that," in response to a pep talk? Again, the duty of someone who cares for a wrongly convicted citizen is to make him feel better about being executed, because it preserves the established social order.
At the end, Budd sings a benediction on the Captain who could have saved him but who stayed remote... I think that when you connect all the dots, the Soviet cultural establishment thought that "Budd" was one of the few worthwhile Western musical works post-WWII, for the wrong reasons, but for understandable reasons. Killing innocent beauty in the name of preserving the forms of authority was all in a day's work for the Soviet system.
Whereas my crystal ball tells me that Britten and Forster were drawn to the story because its failures of legal due process and basic human decency resonated with British gays who had lived through WWII. And Budd's stammer mirrors "the love that dare not speak its name."
FWIW & YMMV, obviously.
But I find Budd's blessing of Vere (read: Truth?) to induce profound moral queasiness. And of course one must remember that to a great extent, Forster and Britten were bound by Melville's text, and Melville was a very twisted dude.
JM
Follow Ups:
John:
With respect, I think you miss the essence of Melville here (and "twisted dude"? Really!). Melville's works repeatedly confront a reader with the problem of knowing. The whale, Bartleby, the Budd/Claggart/Vere troika -- all are undefinable or else susceptible to an unlimited variety of (some very tempting) definitions (including yours). The plots are objects, and the real characters are the fallible narrators; and what really happened if the narrators cannot wholly be trusted? Thence arises the perhaps-insurmountable challenge of turning any Melville work into a stage piece like an opera. But no need to call names!
(Though I recall that you don't like late Beethoven either; but I am a tolerant person.)
Best,
Jeremy
. . . I'm going to hold off giving any credibility to your (and the Atlantic's) assertion that the Soviets (authorities or not) were all into Billy Budd. It just doesn't pass the giggle test.
I of course understand that in the realm of art, there are layers to the onion, many layers.
But is not the dramatic crux of the story of Billy Budd that the crew was willing to mutiny to save Budd's life, but Budd declined the offer?
And does not that sentiment play into the needs of totalitarian governments?
One subtext is of course (given the date of the action--1797) British horror at the French Revolution. Act II starts with the sighting of a French ship, but losing it in the fog leads to the confrontation scene. So, for the British sailors to reject Revolution, even in the interest of Justice, is I think nothing other than applied Fascism.
Anyway, BB and Peter Grimes have always creeped me out, frankly.
Captain Vere did not have to steer the court to a death sentence--but he did. An old man, he was envious of Budd's natural beauty and charisma.
And of course there's more Christ symbolism at work than you can shake a stick at--starting with Budd's being a foundling, the closest one can get to a Virgin Birth in these times.
ATB,
John
though I am certain that Melville would have been delighted to see you take your position, and also with genungo who takes his just below. Many more analyses are possible, and none is certainly correct. All reflect the understandings, attitudes and values of their holders, the truly interesting central characters of these works -- that is, the narrators, and above them, the position-holders.
Melville was a thoroughly modern writer and a philosopher and a genius. And I look like him.
All the best,
Jeremy
How about this scenario:BB rejected the idea of mutiny, not because he was so devoted to the system, but because he wanted to spare the lives of the crew members he loved. He knew that the system was incapable of rendering true justice. And he knew that the system would hunt down any mutinous crew member until the system's version of "justice" was finally served. BB sacrificed himself for the sake of his "natural" blue-collared co-workers. I doubt that he would have thought to sacrifice himself for the sake of some "unnatural" bureaucratic system, or for any of those dirty white-collared seabirds who were in control of it.
The story of "Billy Budd, Sailor" serves to highlight differences between the workings of "natural law" and the workings of "law and order" as administered by bloated and corrupt bureaucratic systems and the bottom-feeders who hide within them. How could the Soviets have missed that point?
At the end, Melville invokes the vision of sea worms twisting around BB's dead and sunken body.
Captain Vere probably would have "steered the court toward a death sentence" in this case regardless of his personal feelings. Necessarily perhaps, there was almost zero tolerance for severe infractions on board a ship like that in those days. If one hopes to maintain proper discipline on a ship full of wild men one must crack down on severe infractions harshly and consistently - much more so than if the very same infraction had occurred on land. So, once again, BB = Victim of the Machine.
Edits: 07/15/15 07/15/15 07/15/15 07/15/15 07/15/15 07/15/15 07/16/15 08/01/15
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