I have a lot of respect for Britten's music and for The Rape of Lucretia. As far as his operas go, I do prefer Peter Grimes, Billy Budd and Albert Herring, but with Rape of Lucretia I love the intensely moving story and the sparsely effective texture of the score. This 1987 production I cannot recommend highly enough. The costume and set design is simple yet elegant, with the lighting really interestingly done like some of the characters shown in silhouette. The staging is austere(with the scrubbed boards and sliding screens) yet telling, helped by the expert video directing which always focuses on the drama unfolding above all else. The orchestra play Britten's sparse orchestration, just twelve instruments, with the intensity one would expect from watching a production of the opera and the conducting is musical and authoritative. I cannot fault the performances either, Anthony Rolfe Johnson and Kathryn Harries sing the Male and Female Choruses very affectingly, and Jean Rigby as Lucretia, Richard Van Allan as Collatinus and Russell Smythe as Tarquinius are outstanding, singing expressively and acting with great understanding of their characters. All in all, if you love Britten's music and good singing this Rape of Lucretia is a must watch. 10/10 Bethany Cox
2 Reviews
Guilt and hypocrisy
Dr_Coulardeau23 July 2016
Warning: Spoilers
This is a war story that defies and defiles love. We must keep in mind we are just after the Second World War, just out of it, and the steady reference to Jesus Christ, to the Cross, to his death to save us makes the story of Lucretia a real annunciation that man's curse cannot be redeemed. Jesus is compensation and not possible change. It is salvation that has to be brought back over and over again since man will always commit sins, a redemption that can only come after the crime. This somber Christian parabolic lesson is present from beginning to end and animates the whole tale.
The story is a simple as simple can be. Two generals, Junius and Collatinus, and one Prince, Tarquinius, are at war against the Greeks somewhere and they boast, some evening in camp when drinking and waiting for a battle to come some day, about women and how the wives of many generals were found unfaithful when checked upon, except Lucretia, Collatinus' wife. According to Tarquinius women are the only end in life for him and for both Junius and Tarquinius all women are by nature unchaste. Tarquinius though boasts he can prove Lucretia is chaste and Junius dares him on that objective, both meaning Lucretia will be taken, for Junius because that's the nature of all women and for Tarquinius because he is a hypocrite when asserting Lucretia is chaste: his objective is to take her. Sure enough Tarquinius takes a horse, gallops to Rome, visits late at night Lucretia's home and spends the night there. During the night he takes Lucretia and rides her just the same utilitarian n way as a horse, and then he goes back to his horse and gallops back to camp before daybreak. Strangely enough Junius tells Collatinus he has to check upon Lucretia because he had heard a horse galloping away on the previous night and galloping back in very early in the morning. When Collatinus arrives at Lucretia's home, it is too late and Lucretia kills herself in front of her husband out of shame.
But the libretto's author and Benjamin Britten turn this simple and sad story into a remarkably meaningful tale about man and his fate, consequently about woman and her fate.
First the story is built on two groups of people. On one hand three men, two generals and one prince. Note the three men are connected by their military service. On the other hand three women, Lucretia, her nurse Bianca and her maid Lucia. Note the three women are connected to light and purity by their names. Lucia is a name derived from "lux" meaning light. Bianca is a name derived from "bianco" meaning white, and Lucretia often associated to the Latin word "lucrum" meaning profit is parallel to Lucia and hence the old Celtic god of light, Lugh, Lug or Lu'ch seems more pregnant to qualify the lady. Note though this very same Celtic root, which is also an Indo-European root, the same as in the Latin word "lux" is also behind Lucifer. Lucretia thus and her two servants create an environment of light that is also ambiguous in some ways with connection to "lucrum" (profit), to "Lucifer" (the light- resplendent side of Satan), and also to lust and an old Germanic root meaning desire. In this triad of women we have some ambiguous meaning that makes them in a way the victims of a curse: the curse of being light as well as desire, purity as well as profit.
On the other hand the triad of men are just military people by profession or by birth and their superiority as men is their absolute dimension as individuals who just take what they can take for the sole reason they can take it, and that applies to women for two of them, though the third one remains silent on the subject more than non- committed: he is married, his wife is faithful and he is faithful to his wife.
These two triads are opposed in directions, one looking to the other, one penetrating the other and the other receiving the first one. That is the famous star of David and thus a Jewish symbol that was anachronistic in Lucretia's time in ancient Rome, but is pregnant in modern times in 1946.
These two triads are amplified by twp choruses in the old Greek meaning, each one reduced to one person who gives some reflection on what is happening. One is male and the other one is female. Thus we have two groups of four, four men and four women, and the heavy reference to Christ makes us think of the crucifixion of course but the number eight the two groups could compose is not significant here since there is no second coming or resurrection in the fateful and tragic story we are dealing with. The two choruses are thus the voice of the curse of men and women, of humanity. This curse is perfectly expressed in the second interlude:
"Female Chorus and Male Chorus Here, in this scene, you see virtue assailed by sin with strength triumphing. All this is endless sorrow and pain for Him.
Nothing impure survives, all passion perishes. Virtue has only one desire: to let its blood flow back into the wounds of Christ.
She, whom the world denies, Maria, Mother of God, help us to lift this sin which is our nature and is the Cross to Him.
She, whom the world denies, Mary, most chaste and pure, help us to find your love, which is His spirit, flowing to us from Him."
[. . . the full review on the audio recordings on various Amazon sites]
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU
The story is a simple as simple can be. Two generals, Junius and Collatinus, and one Prince, Tarquinius, are at war against the Greeks somewhere and they boast, some evening in camp when drinking and waiting for a battle to come some day, about women and how the wives of many generals were found unfaithful when checked upon, except Lucretia, Collatinus' wife. According to Tarquinius women are the only end in life for him and for both Junius and Tarquinius all women are by nature unchaste. Tarquinius though boasts he can prove Lucretia is chaste and Junius dares him on that objective, both meaning Lucretia will be taken, for Junius because that's the nature of all women and for Tarquinius because he is a hypocrite when asserting Lucretia is chaste: his objective is to take her. Sure enough Tarquinius takes a horse, gallops to Rome, visits late at night Lucretia's home and spends the night there. During the night he takes Lucretia and rides her just the same utilitarian n way as a horse, and then he goes back to his horse and gallops back to camp before daybreak. Strangely enough Junius tells Collatinus he has to check upon Lucretia because he had heard a horse galloping away on the previous night and galloping back in very early in the morning. When Collatinus arrives at Lucretia's home, it is too late and Lucretia kills herself in front of her husband out of shame.
But the libretto's author and Benjamin Britten turn this simple and sad story into a remarkably meaningful tale about man and his fate, consequently about woman and her fate.
First the story is built on two groups of people. On one hand three men, two generals and one prince. Note the three men are connected by their military service. On the other hand three women, Lucretia, her nurse Bianca and her maid Lucia. Note the three women are connected to light and purity by their names. Lucia is a name derived from "lux" meaning light. Bianca is a name derived from "bianco" meaning white, and Lucretia often associated to the Latin word "lucrum" meaning profit is parallel to Lucia and hence the old Celtic god of light, Lugh, Lug or Lu'ch seems more pregnant to qualify the lady. Note though this very same Celtic root, which is also an Indo-European root, the same as in the Latin word "lux" is also behind Lucifer. Lucretia thus and her two servants create an environment of light that is also ambiguous in some ways with connection to "lucrum" (profit), to "Lucifer" (the light- resplendent side of Satan), and also to lust and an old Germanic root meaning desire. In this triad of women we have some ambiguous meaning that makes them in a way the victims of a curse: the curse of being light as well as desire, purity as well as profit.
On the other hand the triad of men are just military people by profession or by birth and their superiority as men is their absolute dimension as individuals who just take what they can take for the sole reason they can take it, and that applies to women for two of them, though the third one remains silent on the subject more than non- committed: he is married, his wife is faithful and he is faithful to his wife.
These two triads are opposed in directions, one looking to the other, one penetrating the other and the other receiving the first one. That is the famous star of David and thus a Jewish symbol that was anachronistic in Lucretia's time in ancient Rome, but is pregnant in modern times in 1946.
These two triads are amplified by twp choruses in the old Greek meaning, each one reduced to one person who gives some reflection on what is happening. One is male and the other one is female. Thus we have two groups of four, four men and four women, and the heavy reference to Christ makes us think of the crucifixion of course but the number eight the two groups could compose is not significant here since there is no second coming or resurrection in the fateful and tragic story we are dealing with. The two choruses are thus the voice of the curse of men and women, of humanity. This curse is perfectly expressed in the second interlude:
"Female Chorus and Male Chorus Here, in this scene, you see virtue assailed by sin with strength triumphing. All this is endless sorrow and pain for Him.
Nothing impure survives, all passion perishes. Virtue has only one desire: to let its blood flow back into the wounds of Christ.
She, whom the world denies, Maria, Mother of God, help us to lift this sin which is our nature and is the Cross to Him.
She, whom the world denies, Mary, most chaste and pure, help us to find your love, which is His spirit, flowing to us from Him."
[. . . the full review on the audio recordings on various Amazon sites]
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU
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