At Music Theatre Wales |
| Music Theatre Wales-The Rape of Lucretia , Cheltenham International Festival , July 18, 1999 |
| Early on in The Rape of Lucretia, three men discuss their wives' fidelity (not a novel topic of conversation in opera). 'Virtue in women is a lack of opportunity,' observes one. 'Women are all whores by nature,' chips in another. The gist of Britten's first chamber opera is that the faithful heroine proves them wrong, though in a way no feminist would applaud. Seduced by the vile Tarquinius, she takes the blame, considers herself sullied for ever and, after confessing to her husband, kills herself. The Roman people took another view. According to Livy, an uprising took place in protest at the atrocity. The Tarquins were expelled from Rome and, no small consequence, republican government was introduced. Such is the price of lust. Britten's tale stops at Lucretia's death. A Christian epilogue supplied by the librettist Ronald Duncan, at the composer's request, winds the story down rather than up. This uneasy conclusion is usually offered as a reason for the work's neglect. Yet Lucretia, like Paul Bunyan, is gradually winning recognition for what it is: a small-scale work teeming with musical invention. Scored for small ensemble, and without the protecting veil of a full orchestra, every note is exposed and raw. With the patterning of four men and four women and using repeated motifs and formal musical devices, all is written with an eye, and ear, to structural symmetry. Music Theatre Wales made a compelling case for it with their new staging last week in Cheltenham. Following their tradition of bold, compact interpretations of chamber operas MTW has devised a stern, minimal production, with an open-box backdrop, three raised openings and a chaise longue. Michael McCarthy's production, like Simon Banham's designs, underlined the claustrophobic menace that tramples on domestic ease. Peter Hoare and Tamsin Dives as the Male and Female Chorus are no cool observers but shockingly involved. Hoare, especially, made every word audible while Dives invested all with fierce emotional realism. Kathryn Turpin as Lucretia, in a role first played by Kathleen Ferrier, had warmth and dignity, with Jeremy Huw Williams a properly lascivious and foxy Tarquinius. The on-stage players excelled, engaging with the demands of the score, now sensual, now hieratic, firmly guided by the conductor Michael Rafferty. See it in Buxton this week, or on the autumn national tour. |
Reviewed by: Fiona Maddocks, The Observer. Sunday July 18, 1999 |
This review has been read 3412 times There are 24 other reviews of productions with this title in our database:
|
