Producer:The main problem seems to me to decide how far we are going to be realistic and how far not. For me the most realistic scene is the Battle, Act III, i., where the crew have very definite things to do, loading guns and firing them, stowing hammocks and so on. Then the mist descends again and they are cut off from the enemy. But the mist is as much a mist of doubt and fear in the mind of Vere when he is about to close with Claggart at the beginning and finally at the end of the scene. And these dual planes of action seem to me to run throughout the opera, as they do in Melville.