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1979-"It is worth remembering that “Billy Budd” is a product of the gay closet. It is an opera composed by a closeted gay man, to a libretto written by Forster, a closeted gay man, based on a novella by a man who scholars often suggest was closeted and that revolves around the attractions of men to other men. Though Melville protests, when describing the malevolent master-at-arms, Claggart, that his mysterious evil nature “partakes nothing of the sordid or sensual,” there is no mistaking the secret desire at the core of his hatred of Billy." By ZACHARY WOOLFE Published: NYTimes July 3, 2012 Some tears at edges and lower right corner, can be restored.