The Rape of Lucretia

Soon after completing Peter Grimes, Benjamin Britten was looking for a plot for his next opera. The premiere of The Rape of Lucretia took place on 12 July 1946 in Glyndebourne and was conducted by Ernest Ansermet. The opera quickly entered the repertoire of a new company – the English Opera Group, which was founded by Britten after the manner of the Compagnie des Quinze established by the playwright André Obey. It was his play about Lucretia and Tarquinius that provided the basis for the new opera.
Lucretia’s death was one of the reasons behind the Roman revolt and the establishment of the republic (notably, it is Junius who gives Tarquinius the younger the idea of going to Lucretia and later rouses the people against Tarquinius the senior). Naturally, however, Britten was not interested in the political structure of Ancient Rome – he was interested in something else entirely. He composed a chamber opera in which there are just eight characters. The small orchestra is really an ensemble in which there is just one of each instrument. The characters include a “Male Chorus” and a “Female Chorus” – a soprano and a tenor who perform the role of the chorus in the Ancient Greek sense of the word.
Anna Bulycheva