![]() ![]() The Chorus discuss Christ and love (as in Act I, Scene 1: “We’ll view these human passions and these years /through eyes which once have wept with / Christ’s own tears.”). There are also the additional parts of Male Chorus and Female Chorus, each sung by one person. In addition to Lucretia, Tarquin, and Collatinus, there is Junius and two servants of Lucretia-Bianca and Lucia. (It would seem this Junius is an iteration of Livy’s Lucius Junius Brutus, who is usually known by his cognomen.) The personal is political it is also historical.īritten sets a libretto by Ronald Duncan (with substantial input, it would seem, from Britten himself), after André Obey’s 1931 play, Le viol de Lucrèce. In this version of the tale, there is a fellow Roman soldier, Junius, who is by turns a drunken carouser and an ambitious politician. This act of domestic violence leads to the overthrow of the monarchy and the foundation of the Roman republic. The story of Tarquinius Superbus (Tarquin the Proud), Etruscan King of Rome, and his rape of Collatinus’ chaste wife, Lucretia, leads to turmoil domestic and political. The story of Lucretia is told in book I, chapters 57-58 of Livy’s history of Rome, Ab Urbe Condita (The City from Its Founding), written in the time of Caesar Augustus. It is well worth braving the uncomfortable seats to see this production.Īt its core, this chamber opera is a story of three entangled lives and has ancient roots. ![]() The tale is eviscerating, the art harrowing, Britten’s music fascinating and this production amazing. This season, Boston explores the story of Lucretia, from the Gardner Museum’s programming centered around reunited paintings of Lucretia and Virginia (a mythological doublet), to this week’s Boston Lyric Opera production of The Rape of Lucretia by Britten/Duncan. Nurse Bianca (Margaret Lattimore, r.) consoles Lucretia (Kelley O’Connor) who pines for her husband Collatinus (Lisa Voll photo) ![]()
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