Benjam Brten and Billy Budd's Chamber of (Gay) Secrets
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BILLY BUDD: A GAY IN?
Melville’s novel and Brten’s opera are poignant remrs of the bety and relevance of gay history. * billy budd gay *
Belcher is an edor the Hong Kong office of Kageyama — Teatro ll’Opera di RomaIs “Billy Budd” the ultimate morn gay antihero who almost didn’t speak his name? This year marks the centennial of the random disvery of Herman Melville’s novella by a scholar who was rearchg a bgraphy of the thor, and for a century “Billy Budd” has been analyzed and theorized as the ultimate battle of nocence, envy, voyrism and latent homosexualy.
In an era when the “Will & Grace” reboot nstut a re-analysis of gay nscns, the -the-shadows subtleti of Melville’s tale are thrillg to Benjam Brten’s opera of “Billy Budd, ” wrten more than 25 years after the novel was unearthed, returns to the Royal Opera London this month a new productn that has mmerized dienc Madrid and Rome over the last few years. And they mt ntue to face ath and war after their beloved Billy has been taken om “Billy Budd” the opera has long been seen as a te watershed moment gay history.
Forster, no stranger to gay lerature and the closet (read “Mrice, ” tentnally published after his ath, for stable boys climbg through young men’s bedroom wdows) the recent roster of opera stars who have played Billy is a beefke roll ll: Nathan Gunn, Rod Gily, Teddy Tahu Rhos and Jacqu Imbrailo, the dreamy South Ain barone the new Royal Opera productn, which starts Tuday and ns to May is also somethg rehg about a chos of men sgg of their love for the doomed Billy, for whom they have ped durg months at sea, as seen om the prent-day perspective of Grdr hookups on shore leave. “Billy Budd” taps to male love that most men — gay, straight and all the blurred l between — often would rather avoid: how to exprs love over objectifitn, or affectn that is eper than a football slap on the shoulr or an “I love you, man!