Billy Budd (Romanzo) – Wikipedia

Billy Budd It is a posthumous book by the author Herman Melville, written between 1889 and 1891, ^[first] year of the author’s death. He was found and published posthumously in 1924.

While some sailors remember Billy Budd, the narrator starts the story of the life of man and the events that marked the history of “indomitable”. Following the harsh repression of the mutinies that took place on two British war ships, and fearing the spread of the spirit of the French Revolution also in England, the British are forced to mobilize all their forces in the war against France. The ‘Indomitable’ war ship, received the order to sail and not being able to count on an adequate number of men, recruit with the sailor coercion of a merchant ship. Among these there is also Billy Budd, a cage that immediately conquers the favor of the officers and the captain thanks to his ability and his cheerful disposition, earning a promotion. This triggers the envy of the perfidious Master of arms John Claggart, who ends up denouncing the innocent Billy of mutiny. The ‘beautiful sailor’, unable to defend himself in words, passes uncultivated to the action and kills his accuser with a fist. The good captain ‘true, obliged by the formal rigor of the discipline, is then forced to condemn a man whose innocence knows; This is not without triggering an intense contrast between what is legally correct to do and what all men perceive as more right.

Billy Budd can be interpreted as a metaphor of nature since, being ‘radically good’, it cannot normally integrate into human society. In the face of injustice Billy cannot speak, it can only act: nature is silent.

• Billy Budd or Baby Budd, a left -handed (orphan) shot of a mercantile.
• John Claggart, Mastro d’Armi di Fortuna of the ship.
• Captain true, captain of the Bellipotent , alleged father of Billy.

Probably the lack of final review by the author is a reason for some inaccuracies that can be seen in the text:

• In the British navy the mutinated were stuck in the flagpole of Trincchetto through Bozzelli. Billy, however, is hanged in the mezzana, and on this among the literary critics of the first half of the twentieth century, great debates were caught. Many thought that Melville had chosen to let him hang on the mezzana because he was a cage of the parrocchetto of the Tinchetto tree ^[2] .
• In reality, a captain like real could at best order corporal penalties like whipped with a nine -queue cat; In the book, together with the officers and the Nostromo, he impresses an implementation. Instead he should have consulted with an admiral ^[2] .
• During the novel, the name of the ship changes from Indomitable a Bellipotent

Film [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]

In 1962 he was shot Billy Budd , in black and white. Terence Stamp played Billy Budd, Peter Uscov the captain Vere and Robert Ryan the Mastro d’Armi John Claggart. Other actors were: Melvyn Douglas, John Neville, Paul Rodgers, David Maccallum and Niall Macginnis.

Music [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]

Vinicio Capossela dedicated a song of the same name to Billy Budd, the seventh trace of disc 1 of the album Sailors, prophets and whales,

Morrissey canta Billy Budd in Vauxhall and I Album of 1994.

Opera [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]

• In 1951, the adaptation of Louis O. Coxe and Robert Chapman of 1949, Billy Budd, Both the Donaldson Awards and the Outer Critics Circle Awards won as best acting. ^[3]
• The best known adaptation is Billy Budd, With the music of Benjamin Britten and the booklet by E. M. Forster and Eric Crozier. It follows the initial text of 1924. From its first staging, in December 1951, the work became a regular show at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. The booklet takes some freedoms on the elements of the novel.
• Giorgio Ghedini composed a lyrical version of the novel, which debuted in 1949. The scenic adaptation made by Quasimodo entrusts the dramaturgical scan of Melville’s story to the immobility of the episodes, canceling the same dramatic substance. The eleven musical moments ‘interrupted’ by spoken interventions do not allow an effective realization of the characters; The ‘time’ of acting consumes with too quickly the events so that music can – or must – fully take possession of it. To the definition of the expressive register chosen here by Ghedini, the preference for the solo use of stamps (instrumental or vowels), the alternation of sounds and silences, of intonation and spoken and the progressive rarefy of the musical material contribute, precisely when the Action seems to be tightened around the main characters, almost as far as a disappointment of the music itself. For example, the tenth episode is accompanied by the rhythm of the drum; The conclusion of the work is entrusted to the ‘comment’ expressed by a five -itey madrigal (“is sleepy already”). Yet the use of these essential means reveals how a detached ‘tonal’ contemplation symbolically represents the inescapable sense of that “unjust justice” which is the basis of the drama.

In 1997, a theatrical version of the text was represented for the first time in the S.minio Festival for the first time in Italy. Adapted by Enrico Groppali, directed by Sandro Sequi, scene by Pietro Cascella, main interpreters Maximilian Nisi Billy Budd, Corrado Pani Claggart, Massimo Foschi the captain Vere, Giancarlo Condè Squeak Caporale of boat, Pino Censi the novice, Maurizio Gueli the Danish old sailor .

• The story of Billy Budd , edited by Eugenio Montale, Universal Collection, Milan, Bompiani, 1942, p. 208.
• Billy Budd, parrocchetto cages , translation by M. Minoja, Bur necklace, Rizzoli, p. 140.
• Bill Budd and other stories , Preface and trad. by Enzo Giachino, series I Millennia, Turin, Einaudi, 1965, pp. XVI-520.
  • Billy Budd, Foretopman. Billy Budd, gabbiere di parrocchetto , edited by A. Goldoni, Einaudi pocket series. Bilingual ancestors, Turin, Einaudi, 2001.
• Benito Cereno. Billy Budd , translation by Ruggero Bianchi, Milan, Mursia, 1971. Necklace I great books n.56, Garzanti, 1974.
• Dana e Melville, Two years in the bow. Billy Budd , translation by C. Rossi Fantonetti, Novara, De Agostini Geographical Institute, 1971.
• Billy Budd, sailor , translation by G. Lonza, series I great books, Milan, Garzanti, 1993, pp. XX-108.
• Billy Budd the sailor , translation of and cure by Flaminio di Biagi, cheap pocket series, Newton Compton, 1993, p. 100.
• Billy Budd , translation by M. Segre, series of traveler library, Florence, Passigli, 1989.
• Benito Cereno and Billy Budd , translation by G. Buzzi, Classic series for everyone, Milan, Dalai Editore, 2005, ISBN 978-8490-787-5.
• Billy Budd , translation and care by Alessandro Ceni, Universal economic series. Classics n.2201, Milan, Feltrinelli, 2009, p. 160, ISBN 978-88-07-82201-8.