Nathan Gunn Stars in the Title Role of the Met Production of Britten’s BILLY BUDD

 Billy Budd, Britten's opera about murder on the high seas, returns to the Met stage for the first time since 1997, with David Robertson conducting and Nathan Gunn in his first Met performances of the title role. English tenorJohn Daszak will make his Met debut as the morally conflicted Captain Vere, while James Morris will return to the role of the obsessed villain, John Claggart. Billy Budd, based on a novella by Herman Melville and featuring a libretto by Eric Crozier and the novelist E.M. Forster, will be presented in John Dexter's acclaimed 1978 production.

Billy Budd is one of Gunn's most-praised interpretations. He has sung the role at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Bavarian State Opera, the Pittsburgh Opera, and the Bilbao Opera, as well as on a Grammy Award-winning 2010 studio recording of the complete opera. An alumnus of the Met's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, Gunn's recent Met roles have included Papageno in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, Guglielmo in Mozart's Così fan tutte, Mercutio in Gounod'sRoméo et Juliette, and Clyde Griffiths in the world premiere of Tobias Picker's An American Tragedy. In the 1997 Met revival of Billy Budd, Gunn sang the role of the Novice's Friend. Next season at the Met, he will sing Raimbaud in Rossini's Le Comte Ory.

Daszak has sung Captain Vere at both the Bavarian State Opera (opposite Gunn) and the Frankfurt Opera. Also this season, he has sung Grishka in Rimsky-Korsakov's The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh at the Netherlands Opera; John Mahoney in Weill's The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny in Ghent and Antwerp; and the title role in Schubert's Der Zwerg at the Bavarian State Opera. This summer, he will sing Siegfried in Wagner's Götterdämmerung at the Theatro Municipal in São Paulo.  The evil Claggart is one of Morris's most famous roles; he has sung it 36 times at the Met, beginning with the 1978 company premiere of the opera. Claggart is Morris's fourth Met appearance this season. He has also sung Scarpia in Puccini's Tosca, Ramfis in Verdi's Aida, and the Commendatore in Mozart's Don Giovanni.

Robertson, who is music director of the St. Louis Symphony and Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, made his Met debut in 1996 leading the company premiere of Janá?ek's The Makropulos Case. He has also conducted Bizet's Carmen and Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail at the Met. On May 20, he will lead the MET Orchestra and violin soloist Christian Tetzlaff in a concert at Carnegie Hall. Next season, he will conduct his first Met performances of Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro.

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