Universitätsverlag Göttingen Hanna Rochlitz Sea-changes: Melville - Forster - Britten The story of Billy Budd and its operatic adaptation Hanna Rochlitz Sea-changes: Melville – Forster – Britten This work is licensed under the Creative Commons License 3 .0 “ BY-NC-ND ”, allowing you to download, distribute and print the document in a few copies for private or educational use, given that the document stays unchanged and the creator is mentioned. You are not allowed to sell copies of the free version. erschienen im Universitätsverlag Göttingen 2012 Hanna Rochlitz Sea-changes: Melville – Forster – Britten The story of Billy Budd and its operatic adaptation Universitätsverlag Göttingen 2012 Bibliographische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliographie; detaillierte bibliographische Daten sind im Internet über <http://dnb.ddb.de> abrufbar. Anschrift der Autorin Hanna Rochlitz e-mail: hanna.rochlitz@feuerlitz.de Die vorliegende Arbeit wurde vom Fachbereich 02 Geistes- und Kulturwissenschaften der Universität Kassel zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades eines Doktors der Philosophie (Dr. Phil.) angenommen. Tag der Disputation: 6. Juli 2011. This work is protected by German Intellectual Property Right Law. It is also available as an Open Access version through the publisher’s homepage and the Online Catalogue of the State and University Library of Goettingen (http://www.sub.uni-goettingen.de). Users of the free online version are invited to read, download and distribute it. Users may also print a small number for educational or private use. However they may not sell print versions of the online book. Satz und Layout: Hanna Rochlitz Umschlaggestaltung: Jutta Pabst Titelabbildung: Hanna Rochlitz © 2012 Universitätsverlag Göttingen http://univerlag.uni-goettingen.de ISBN: 978-3-86395-045-3 To my parents Contents Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................... xiii Copyright statement ........................................................................................................... xv List of abbreviations.......................................................................................................... xvi Note on citations and editorial practice ....................................................................... xviii Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 19 Part one: Billy Budd: novella and opera .................................................................... 29 I.1. Transforming prose works into opera: some key concerns .................................. 31 I.2. Melville’s Billy Budd : the text and its readers ............................................................ 39 I.2.1. Textual history and textual problems ............................................................. 39 I.2.2. Early critical reception and post-1950 criticism ............................................ 41 I.2.3. E. M. Forster and Benjamin Britten in the tradition of British Melville reception .................................................................................. 46 I.2.4. The editions used by Britten and his librettists ............................................. 48 Contents viii I.3. “To quarry a play out of [Melville]”: the three main characters as raw material .............................................................................................................. 53 I.3.1. Methodological reflections and general observations .................................. 53 I.3.2. Billy ....................................................................................................................... 57 I.3.3. Claggart ................................................................................................................ 67 I.3.4. Vere ...................................................................................................................... 73 I.4. Billy Budd transposed and transformed: the libretto................................................ 85 I.4.1. Adapting Melville’s plot .................................................................................... 85 I.4.2. Original Melville Material in the Libretto....................................................... 91 I.4.3. Billy ....................................................................................................................... 92 I.4.4. Claggart ..............................................................................................................100 I.4.5. Vere .................................................................................................................... 105 I.4.6. Further observations and conclusion............................................................ 117 I.5. Musical structures: yet another inside narrative..................................................... 121 I.5.1. Leitmotifs, narrative voice, and narrative perspective................................ 121 I.5.2. “A family of motivic shapes”: the Mutiny “cluster”................................... 123 I.5.3. Musical presences of the main characters: a brief overview ..................... 128 I.5.3.1. Billy.............................................................................................................. 128 I.5.3.2. Claggart ....................................................................................................... 129 I.5.3.3. Vere ............................................................................................................. 131 I.5.4. Tonal symbolism, the closeted interview, and salvation ............................ 134 I.6. Part One: summary and outlook.............................................................................. 141 Part two: E. M. Forster and the story of Billy Budd ............................................ 145 II.1. Forster reads Melville: the first encounter ............................................................ 147 II.1.1. Forster’s 1927 Billy Budd : good versus evil, a drama for two actors .......... 147 II.1.2. “Other claimants to satanic intimacy”: Forster’s queer decodings ........... 149 II.1.3. “Satanic intimacy”? Challenging the connection between homosexuality and evil .................................................................................. 159 II.2. Forsterian themes and narrative patterns ............................................................. 163 II.2.1. “Only one novel to write”: recurring themes and character types ......... 163 II.2.2. The ‘dark’/‘light’ character pairing in Forster’s fiction ............................ 167 II.2.2.1. Typology ................................................................................................... 167 Contents ix II.2.2.2. Saving “the English character”: ‘dark’ redeemed by ‘light’. ............. 169 II.2.2.3. “It takes two to make a Hero”? The ‘light’ saviour character as Other .................................................. 171 II.2.2.4. “Bring me a bath”: the homophobic ‘light’ character ....................... 173 II.2.2.5. Eternal pursuit: sexuality, violence and death in Forster’s fiction ................................................................................... 174 II.2.3. The Forsterian salvation narrative ............................................................... 178 II.2.3.1. “From confusion to salvation”: “travelling light”.............................. 178 II.2.3.2. “The salvation that was latent in his own soul”: connection with the Other as a means to connection with the self..................... 181 II.2.3.3. Seizing the symbolic moment: human failure, “odious” behaviour, and the possibility of redemption .................... 182 II.2.3.4. “A land where she’ll anchor forever”: death, love and the salutary prophetic vision...................................... 185 II.2.3.5. “But he has saved me”: the strains and tensions of enforced salvation.................................... 188 II.2.3.6. Forster’s “Nunc Dimittis” – his final word on salvation? ................ 190 II.2.4. An affinity of literary imagination: some aspects of Forster’s and Melville’s narrative strategies .................. 191 II.2.4.1. Forster’s “inside narratives” .................................................................. 191 II.2.4.2. Forster and Melville hint at mystery: “scriptural reminiscence”, unsympathetic outsiders, and narratorial eloquence .......................... 194 II.3. Forster’s “little phrases”: pan-Forsterian textual leitmotifs ............................... 199 II.3.1. Introduction .................................................................................................... 199 II.3.2. “Muddle” ......................................................................................................... 200 II.3.3. “Mist” ............................................................................................................... 201 II.3.4. “Oh, what have I done?” .............................................................................. 205 II.3.5. “I’d die for you” ............................................................................................. 207 II.3.6. Intimatopia: “helping”, “looking after”, “trusting”, and “feeling safe” ....... 209 II.3.7. “Come” ............................................................................................................ 212 II.3.8. “Lights in the darkness” and “far-shining sails”........................................ 217 II.3.9. “I’m done for” and “Fate”............................................................................ 229 II.3.10. “Only a boy”: paternalism and the pitfalls of desire ............................... 232 II.3.10.1. Forsterian “boys” .................................................................................. 232 II.3.10.2. “The physical violence of the young”: the aggressive “boy” as object of erotic longing ................................................................... 234 Contents x II.3.10.3. Despotic fathers, obedient sons, and salutary “breaking”: Billy Budd and Howards End .................................................................. 239 II.3.10.4. The parallel case of “Arthur Snatchfold” .......................................... 247 II.3.10.5. Man/boy: narrative trajectories in Billy Budd .................................... 248 II.3.10.6. “You [...] spoke so fatherly to me”: paternal blandishments and boys’ betrayals ...................................... 252 II.4. Textual relationships: four case studies ................................................................. 257 II.4.1. “Ralph and Tony” (1903) .............................................................................. 257 II.4.2. The Longest Journey (1907) ......................................................................... 269 II.4.2.1. Introduction and synopsis ..................................................................... 269 II.4.2.2. ‘Light’ characters ..................................................................................... 271 II.4.2.2.1. Stephen Wonham: a pagan deity in Edwardian guise ................ 271 II.4.2.2.2. The petty athlete: Gerald Dawes as homophobic ‘light’ character ................................................... 284 II.4.2.3. ‘Dark’ characters ...................................................................................... 289 II.4.2.3.1. “Too weak”: Rickie Elliot, a protagonist who fails .................... 289 II.4.2.3.2. Desperate villains: John Claggart and Agnes Elliot, née Pembroke.......................... 297 II.4.3. “He would not save his saviour”: “Arthur Snatchfold” (1928) .............. 303 II.4.4. “The Other Boat” (1957/58)........................................................................ 314 II.5. Character relationships: protagonist, villain, saviour .......................................... 325 II.5.1. “A man who despite his education, understands”: Forsterian readings of Captain Vere............................................................ 325 II.5.1.1. Representation and transformation: the Vere of the 1947 BBC Book Talk ................................................. 325 II.5.1.2. Reading matter(s): E. M. Forster and E. F. Vere ............................... 334 II.5.1.3. “Natures constituted like Captain Vere’s” among the Forsterian ‘dark’ characters ............................................... 344 II.5.1.4. “Was he unhinged?”: Melville, Forster and the voice of Science ......... 354 II.5.1.5. “I who am king of this fragment of earth”: the problem of authority ....................................................................... 362 II.5.2. Sympathy for the Devil: the Forsterian ‘dark’ character as villain, victim and lover of violence ........................................................ 367 II.5.2.1. Goats or sheep? Homosexual panic, repression, homoerotic longing and salvation ........................................................ 367 Contents xi II.5.2.2. Ideal bachelors and “a certain devil” known as asceticism: the dark side of respectability ............................................................... 370 II.5.2.3. “On the surface they were at war”: the erotics of antagonism .......... 386 II.5.3. Billy Budd: a man “in the precise meaning of the word” ........................ 392 II.5.3.1. “Alloyed by H. M.’s suppressed homosex:”: Forster’s earliest encounter with Billy Budd ...................................... 392 II.5.3.2. “Belted Billy” as the desirable Forsterian ‘light’ character................ 395 II.5.3.3. “The light [...] that irritates and explodes” – and inspires desire ....... 397 II.5.3.4. “He’s a-stammer”: (mis-)representation, inarticulacy and violence...... 401 II.5.3.5. Beautiful males, icons of desire: Billy Budd and other Forsterian ‘light’ characters........................................................................................ 403 II.5.3.6. “To make Billy, rather than Vere, the hero”: an exercise in communicative ambiguity ....................................................................... 408 II.5.3.7. “The strength of Antigone”: acceptance, fortitude and forgiveness..... 415 II.6. Mutiny and homosexuality in Billy Budd : queer reading(s) ................................. 419 II.6.1. Introductory: “Naval report U. S. A.” ........................................................ 419 II.6.2. “Aught amiss”: discourses about mutiny and homosexuality in Melville’s novella ........................................................................................ 421 II.6.3. “Death is the penalty”: mutiny and homosexuality in naval law and Imperialist ideology .......................................................... 422 II.6.4. Subverting “civilisation as we have made it”: Forster and queer desire ...... 424 II.6.5. “I’ll not discuss”: the unspeakable in Forster’s work ............................... 427 II.6.6. “Never could I do those foul things”: negotiating the borders between homoerotic longing and homophobia (I) ................................... 433 II.6.7. “We are both in sore trouble, him and me”: negotiating the borders between homoerotic longing and homophobia (II) ................................. 438 II.6.8. The Mutiny motif: negotiating the borders between homoerotic longing and homophobia (III) ................................ 441 Part Three: genesis of an opera: the sources’ tale ................................................ 451 III.1. Let’s make an opera (I): the genesis of Billy Budd .............................................. 453 III.1.1. Introduction ................................................................................................... 453 III.1.2. “Our most musical novelist”: Forster’s operatic affinities ..................... 454 III.1.3. Setting to work .............................................................................................. 462 III.1.4. “A positive challenge”: all-male opera and relations between men......... 464 Contents xii III.1.5. “We did steep ourselves in this story”: researching the historical background ...................................................... 470 III.1.6. From draft to opera stage: a brief timeline ............................................... 474 III.2. Let’s make an opera (II): evolution of the libretto ............................................ 481 III.2.1. “How odiously Vere comes out in the trial scene”: readings, responses, re-imaginings ............................................................ 481 III.2.2. The source material: overview and general observations ....................... 486 III.2.3. “I am an old man”: the metamorphoses of Captain Vere...................... 494 III.2.3.1. “Vere [...] had better live on”: changed functions of a changed figure .............................................. 494 III.2.3.2. “Really the worst of our problems”: rewriting the trial scene ......... 499 III.2.3.3. From hubris to “the straits of Hell”: Vere’s shorter Act II monologues ...................................................... 511 III.2.3.4. “Lost on the infinite sea”: from “confusion” to transcendent vision .......................................... 515 III.2.4. “This is the trap concealed in the daisies”: the evolution of the Billy/Vere relationship ............................................ 523 III.2.5. “A sanitised Billy Budd ”? Concerning the flogging of the Novice ........... 528 III.2.6. “We’ll take no quarter”: the Captain’s Muster and the 1960 revisions ...... 533 III.2.7. Editing tendencies: from historical realism towards ‘the universal’ ........ 538 III.3. Coda: the Claggart monologue: resisting and rewriting .................................... 543 III.3.1. “It is my most important piece of writing”: Forster’s “big monologue for Claggart” ................................................... 543 III.3.2. “Not soggy depression or growling remorse”: composer and librettist at odds over the opera’s villain ........................ 546 III.3.3. “I seemed turning from one musical discomfort to another”: Claggart’s aria, first version ........................................................................ 549 III.3.4. Haunting fourths: Britten, Forster and the musical convergence of Claggart and Vere .................................................................................... 553 Conclusion and outlook ................................................................................................... 557 Appendix A: Musical examples ...................................................................................... 565 Appendix B: E. M. Forster and Billy Budd : timeline .................................................... 569 Works Cited ....................................................................................................................... 575 Index.................................................................................................................................... 591 xiii Acknowledgements The origins of this project date back to my very first encounter with both Britten’s Billy Budd and my doctoral supervisor Daniel Göske, many years ago. Besides my occasionally obsessive love of my subject, it has been Daniel Göske’s enthusiastic and empathetic support which has continuously sustained me through the years of the project’s development, and I should like to acknowledge my heartfelt gratitude to him. The result of my efforts will hopefully speak to other lovers of Herman Melville, E. M. Forster, Benjamin Britten, and Eric Crozier; if my findings help to inspire them, I could wish for no better tribute to these much beloved artists. I would like to thank the University of Kassel for funding my project with a two-year doctoral grant in 2005-2007. A number of institutions and their representatives have kindly provided me with access to the source material which forms the vital basis for many of my enquiries, and without which this study would have been impossible. I am grateful to the Trustees of the Britten-Pears Foundation for allowing me to consult and quote from the original documents held at the Britten-Pears Foundation Archive at Aldeburgh, and to Gillian Williams, Literary Executor to Eric Crozier, for per- mission to quote from material pertaining to the Evans-Crozier collections. I would like to thank the former Director of the Britten-Pears Library, Jennifer Doctor, for some inspiring comments. Special thanks go to Chris Grogan, the Britten-Pears Foundation’s Director of Collections and Heritage, for solving an indecipherable word at a passing glance. I would also like to thank Jude Brimmer, the Britten-Pears Foundation’s Archivist, for her assistance at Aldeburgh and Cambridge, and Tom Barnes, HLF Graduate Trainee, for his invaluable help in answering my email queries and requests for additional reproductions of libretto material. Last but by no means least, I am grateful to Nick Clark, now the Britten- Pears Foundation’s Librarian, for his generous support during all my visits to the Britten-Pears Library, and for his patient and kind assistance through many years of dealing with my convoluted queries. I would like to thank the Provost and Fellows of King’s College, Cambridge, for allowing me to consult and quote from the papers of E. M. Forster held at the College Archives. My particular thanks go to the Archivist, Patricia McGuire, for her help during my visits to the Archive Centre, and her generous support and friendly encouragement in answering my email enquiries. I am indebted to the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek for the opportunity to consult and quote from Britten’s discarded drafts for Billy Budd , and would like to thank Andrea Harrandt (Musiksammlung) for dealing with my email enquiries. I am grateful to Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd for their permission to quote from the sketches, vocal score, full score and libretto of Billy Budd in its four- act and revised two-act form. Special thanks go to Brian Inglis, Senior Business Acknowledgements xiv Affairs/Copyright Administrator at Imagem, who kindly dealt with my request. I should furthermore like to thank Boosey & Hawkes Musikverlag (Bonn) for the loan of a copy of the four-act vocal score in 1997. Andrew Loukes, Curator of Fine Art at Manchester City Galleries, kindly un- dertook to provide me with information about Sir Frank Dicksee’s Funeral of a Viking . Colin T. Clarkson, Head of the Reference Department at Cambridge Uni- versity Library, diligently responded to my queries about the various early editions of The Brothers Karamazov in Constance Garnett’s translation. I would also like to thank Paul Kildea for his ready and generous responses to my written enquiries, and Philip Reed for some inspiring encounters and for his interest in my project. Various friends and colleagues lent their support to me over the course of the long development of this project. I am most warmly obliged to Dorothea Schuller for her friendship, academic support and inspiration, and for numerous small miracles of librarianship. Glen S. Leonard generously shared his thoughts and some relevant gleanings from his own research on E. M. Forster. Dean Cáceres was an ideal office mate during my ‘squatting’ years at the Musicology Department of Göttingen University. Robin Anne Reid and Suzanne Wint made some hard-to- obtain articles available to me. Mafalda Stasi kindly checked my translations from the Italian, and Susan and John Andrews provided help with English musical no- menclature. Sophia Woodley read through the entire manuscript with a native speaker’s eye. Any remaining faults, as well as any idiosyncrasies of grammar and punctuation, are entirely my own. Finally, my work would have been impossible without the sustaining presence and encouragement of my family, loved ones, teachers and friends. There are more of those than I can name here – you all know who you are. My most heart- felt gratitude goes to my parents, Kristina and Burkhard Rochlitz, and to my sister Lisbeth, for their continuous and unconditional love and support. I have been especially glad of my mother’s unflagging interest in my thoughts on E. M. Forster and his work. I should also like to thank Matto Jordan, who witnessed the devel- opment of this project from its very start. The same goes for the members of my ‘theatre family’, for Petra Stürzer, Alex Eickhoff (also a veritable apostle of multi- ple data backup), and many of my friends online. Support and equilibrium of a different kind was and continues to be provided by my Wushu family at Tai Chi Schule Göttingen. My sub-chapter on Forsterian heroes (II.5.3.6.) is dedicated to the memory of Gerd Ehler, Thomas Gesk and Torsten Ehrhardt, three technicians of the Kampfmittelbeseitigungsdienst Niedersachsen (Explosive Ordnance Disposal Service of Lower Saxony) who died in Göttingen on 1 June 2010 in the unex- pected explosion of a World War II American aircraft bomb they were preparing to disarm. xv Copyright statement Quotations from the letters, diaries and other writings of Benjamin Britten are Copyright © the Britten-Pears Foundation (www.brittenpears.org). The writings of Eric Crozier are Copyright © the Estate of the late Eric Crozier. They are cited with the kind permission of Eric Crozier’s literary executor Gil Williams, and courtesy of the Britten-Pears Foundation. Copyright to E. M. Forster’s letters and published and unpublished materials is held by the Provost and Fellows of King’s College, Cambridge. They are cited with the kind permission of The Society of Authors as agent for the Provost and Scholars of King’s College, Cambridge. Billy Budd in all its forms (sketches, vocal score, libretto and full score) is © Copy- right 1951, 1961 by Hawkes & Son (London) Ltd. These materials are reproduced by kind permission of Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd. xvi List of abbreviations AE Forster, E. M. 1971. Albergo Empedocle and Other Writings AH Forster, E. M. 1996. Abinger Harvest and England’s Pleasant Land (Abinger Edition). AN Forster, E. M. 1974. Aspects of the Novel (Abinger Edition). AS Forster, E. M. 1980. Arctic Summer and Other Fiction (Abinger Edition). BB Melville, Herman. 1946. Billy Budd (ed. by William Plomer). BBC Forster, E. M. 2008. The BBC Talks of E. M. Forster 1929-1960 BBC1960 Britten, Benjamin, Eric Crozier, and E. M. Forster. 2003. “Dis- cussion on Billy Budd ” [1960], in: Kildea, ed.: Britten on Music BBLL Britten, Benjamin. 2004. Letters from a Life: the Selected Letters of Benjamin Britten , Vol. 3. BK Dostoevsky, Fyodor. 1912. The Brothers Karamazov . Translated by Constance Garnett. BPL Britten-Pears Library. The Britten-Pears Foundation Archive, Aldeburgh (United Kingdom). BPL A61, BPL A62 Forster, E. M., Eric Crozier, and Benjamin Britten. Libretto drafts for Billy Budd . Material held by the Britten-Pears Founda- tion Archive. Archived on Microfilms A61 and A62. The re- spective frame numbers are given after the colon, thus: BPL A61:1. BPL AD-EMF Forster, E. M., Eric Crozier, and Benjamin Britten. Libretto drafts for Billy Budd . Forster’s copy of the typed four-act libretto draft of August 1949 (GB-Alb 2-9100356). Material held by the Britten-Pears Foundation Archive. The siglum is followed by a folio reference that follows the archivists’ foliation (e.g. BPL AD-EMF:7r or BPL AD-EMF:7v, where r = recto and v = verso). BPL X3 Britten, Benjamin. Holograph draft of Billy Budd . Material held by the Britten-Pears Foundation Archive (GB-Alb 2-9300664). Archived on Microfilm X3. The respective frame numbers are given after the colon, thus: BPL X3:1. CPB Forster, E. M. 1987. Commonplace Book EMFL I, EMFL II Forster, E. M. 1985. Selected Letters of E. M. Forster (Vol. I and Vol. II). EOG English Opera Group. GG Reid, Forrest. 2007. The Garden God List of abbreviations xvii Griffin Forster, E. M. 1951. “Letter from E. M. Forster”, published in The Griffin HE Forster, E. M. 1973. Howards End (Abinger Edition). H/S Melville, Herman. 1962. Billy Budd, Sailor (an inside narrative) by Herman Melville (ed. by Harrison Hayford and Merton M. Sealts). KCC: EMF The Papers of Edward Morgan Forster. Collection held by King’s College Archive Centre, Cambridge (GBR/0272/PP/ EMF). References to items in this collection are marked “KCC: EMF”, followed by the Archive’s respective numeric siglum. LD Forster, E. M. 2011. Forster’s “Locked Diary” = Vol. 2 of The Journals and Diaries of E. M. Forster LIB Forster, Edward Morgan, and Eric Crozier. 1961. Billy Budd: Opera in Two Acts. Revised version 1961 . (Libretto, Boosey & Hawkes). LIB1951 Forster, Edward Morgan, and Eric Crozier. 1951. Billy Budd: Opera in Four Acts. (Libretto, Boosey & Hawkes). LJ Forster, E. M. 1984a. The Longest Journey (Abinger Edition). LN Forster, E. M. 1977b. The Lucy Novels: Early Sketches for A Room with a View (Abinger Edition). LtC Forster, E. M. 1972a. The Life to Come and Other Stories (Abinger Edition). M Forster, E. M. 1999a. Maurice (Abinger Edition). MF Hawthorne, Nathaniel. 1995. The Marble Faun MJ Trilling, Lionel. 1981. The Middle of the Journey MSSPtI Forster, E. M. 1978c. The Manuscripts of A Passage to India (Abin- ger Edition). PtI Forster, E. M. 1978a. A Passage to India (Abinger Edition). RV Forster, E. M. 1977a. A Room with a View (Abinger Edition). TCD Forster, E. M. 1972b. Two Cheers for Democracy (Abinger Edition). TPT Forster, E. M. 1998. The Prince’s Tale and Other Uncollected Writings (Abinger Edition). TMS Forster, E. M. 1997. The Machine Stops and Other Stories (Abinger Edition). WA Forster, E. M. 1975. Where Angels Fear to Tread (Abinger Edi- tion). WJ Melville, Herman. 1970. White-Jacket, or The world in a Man-of- War xviii Note on citations and editorial practice In accordance with the requirements of my publisher, when citing works of other authors I have tacitly changed American spellings to British spellings, and unified all representations of musical keys to written words, so that, for instance, “B b ” in the cited source becomes “B flat” in my text. References to the orchestral score of Billy Budd (Boosey & Hawkes 20733) appear as a figure number in square brackets (preceded by the appropriate Act where necessary), plus or minus the relevant number of bars after or before the given figure number, thus: “Act I, [67]+3”, where “+3” refers to the third bar after the one marked by the figure, i.e. the fourth bar of figure 67. Citations from the Bible follow the Authorised King James Version. When citing draft material published in the Abinger Edition of Forster’s works, I have, for simplicity’s sake, retained the editorial symbols used throughout the Abinger Edition: words between oboli \.../ are Forster’s insertions; words be- tween angle brackets <...> are Forster’s deletions; double angle brackets <<...>> indicate the deletion of a passage in which something else (shown be- tween single angle brackets) had already been deleted. When citing unpublished archive material from the King’s College and Britten- Pears Foundation archives, I have tried to convey a more immediate impression of the source by reproducing cancellations as struck-through words and letters. The exception are long passages in the libretto drafts which have been summarily cancelled; the extent of these cancellations and insertions is indicated by notes in editorial square brackets. Simple insertions are rendered as text between oboli \.../, more complex insertions are identified and explained by notes in editorial square brackets.