The Rape of Lucretia

PERFORMERS:
Male Chorus: Dmitry Koleushko
Female Chorus: Natalia Yakimova
Collatinus: Ilya Bannik
Junius: Maxim Bulatov
Tarquinius: Viktor Korotich
Lucretia: Natalia Yevstafieva
Bianca: Varvara Solovyova
Lucia: Marina Aleshonkova

Mariinsky Orchestra
Conductor: Alice Farnham
Musical Preparation: Leonid Zolotarev

The Rape of Lucretia was Benjamin Britten’s first chamber opera and is the most frequently performed along with Peter Grimes, The Turn of the Screw and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The premiere took place at Glyndebourne on 12 July 1946 under the baton of Ernest Ansermet. The roles of the narrators were written for two outstanding singers – Peter Pears and Joan Cross with Kathleen Ferrier making her stage debut as Lucretia. At the Mariinsky Theatre the opera was first performed (in concert) in November 2013 to mark one century since the composer’s birth.
The libretto is based on French playwright André Obey’s play Le Viol de Lucrèce, to which the librettist Ronald Duncan added the testimonies of Titus Livius and Ovid as well as verse from Shakespeare’s poem Lucrece. Dissatisfaction with the repressive politics of the last Roman Emperor Tarquinius Superbus grows by the day. Explosive and uncontrollable he easily succumbs to temptation, which the perfidious general Junius is quick to take advantage of. He drops hints to Tarquinius of the partiality of Lucretia pa who is married to a patrician – she is an upstanding model of piety and faithfulness. The naive tyrant hurries off to Lucretia’s house where he takes her by force. Lucretia’s suicide and Junius’ fiery speech over the rape victim proves to be the last straw which invokes the people to revolt.
Britten and Duncan take scant notice of the political turmoil. The object of their attention is not the fate of the people or the achievements of legendary heroes but private and intimate life, a man’s passions and his sufferings. The Christian prologue and finale of the opera warn us about the violence and tyranny that live in each of us. It is not by chance that the opera has narrators who comment on what is happening like an evangelist such as in Bach’s Passions.
Britten defined his relationship to chamber opera and grand opera in similar terms as his attitude to the quartet and a full orchestra. This opera has no typical overture. The musical drama – in terms of scale totally comparable with grand opera (two acts lasting almost two hours) – is performed by eight soloists and a condensed orchestra. Britten’s opus does not contain an antique chorus – there are merely two coryphées who depict Male and Female Choruses (tenor and soprano), and in the orchestra there are not even any couples – just one instrument from each section. The vocal roles are typified by the intense declamation and expressionistic and sweeping melodies that obediently follow every word. The restrained and light notes of cantilena appear primarily in the female roles in situations of calm (the spinning scene, Lucretia’s dream, morning). Britten’s orchestra is truly diverse – from asceticism and compliance of the characters’ vocal recitatives and pure illustrativeness (Tarquinius’ tale and the cradle song) to an extremely sharp and intense utterance that almost seems to come from the depths of the subconscious.
Leila Abbasova