The Rape of Lucretia

Benjamin Britten's groundbreaking 1945 chamber opera The Rape of Lucretia has been revived and revitalised by the Sydney Chamber Opera. The gender politics of the opera's 6th Century Roman setting will be strikingly familiar to contemporary audiences, particularly portrayed as they are here with creeping malice and striking physicality.

The very simple story is narrated from the 20th Century, with a dual chorus of narrators circling the central action. Prince of Rome, Tarquinius, goaded by the slippery Junius finds himself humiliated that the only chaste woman remaining in Rome is the wife of his rival Collatinus - the titular Lucretia. The impetuous and headstrong prince takes off across the Tiber to Rome to test of 

The staging of the piece has been kept minimal. A few stray props are scattered across a stark white amphitheatre. There is little to focus on other than the hypnotic dance of the cast of eight, the harsh angularity and fluid emotionality of the score, and Britten's absorbing and pulchritudinous libretto. Adding further dimension to the play is a gender flip that sees female cast members play male characters and vice versa, but each one lip syncs the voice of another cast member. 

That mind-bending premise is actually the biggest strength of this production. Each costumed performer is stalked by their singing counterpart, and controlled in an almost puppet-like manner until the second and final act when the central act of violence brings the two sets of characters together and sees relationships unravel in spectacular fashion.

Britten's score itself moves between brittle shards of sound, rippling with cold menace, and more luscious and light soundscapes. Woodwinds and harp curve around the chamber orchestra's fulsome sound like stray, crepuscular light. The musicians and the vocalists of Sydney Chamber Opera perform with delicacy and dynamism.

This thoroughly modern take on an important work takes a meta approach. Through its staging and structure it seems to question Britten's use of the theft of Lucretia's agency as a device for the religious allusion that erupts into the story at its end (though it is also referred to at the beginning of both acts). So long after it was written, there are clearly new depths to be discovered in Britten's deceptively simple work. 

The Rape of Lucretia is on at Carriageworks until the final performance on Saturday August 26th. See the Sydney Scoop Calendar for details.

Production photos by Zan Wimberley.