English National Opera: Billy Budd at London Coliseum

ENO's production of 'Billy Budd', Benjamin Britten's opera which focuses on the way a particular world deals with an outsider. The outsider is a young man, press-ganged into naval service on the HMS Indomitable around 1797. His story is told in an opera-length flashback by the ship's captain, Edward Fairfax Vere, who is racked by guilt over the young man's fate. Billy's optimism, good-heartedness and trusting nature wins over all but the most venal of the downtrodden crew. He is keen for promotion, but his charisma and beauty cause the evil master-at-arms, John Claggart (who resembles Iago in Shakespeare's 'Othello'), to plot his destruction.