Benjamin Britten, The Rape of Lucretia (1946)

So it's Roman Times, and Tarquinus is in charge. The situation is explained by male and female "choruses" (just one person each, in fact), who are observers outside time who throughout the opera comment on the action in a Christian fashion, and also get emotionally caught up in the goings-on. But anyway. Tarquinus. Tyrant. He's drinking with his subordinates at an army camp, but everyone's jealous of Collatinus, the only one whose wife (Lucretia) has been faithful while they're away. But how faithful IS she, really? Tarquinus decides to go back to Rome to see. I mean, the title kinda gives away what happens next, doesn't it? Lucretia is traumatized, and even though Collatinus accurately asserts that it wasn't her fault and there's no need for shame, well, what do YOU think she does? Keeping in mind that this is an opera?

HOLY HELL, man. I don't necessarily know what I was expecting here; this isn't one of Britten's better-known works. But I was really, seriously blown away here. If anyone expresses doubts that English-language opera can have the heightened emotion of the best Italian opera, just put this on and say "watch and learn, you clod." It's what Britten called a "chamber opera," with just a small ensemble of musicians; the music is accessible--more so, I'd subjectively say, than Peter Grimes--and the whole thing is just dramatic as anything.

Of course, it doesn't hurt that this Glyndebourne production is so good. Well, I guess the production itself is actually a little weird, with the stage covered with loose gravel that characters are always scrabbling around in, but really, it's all about the singers. Duncan Rock is good as Tarquinus, playing the character as this kind of entitled fratboy douchebag, a characterization that certainly fits. BUT. Christine Rice as Lucretia? In my top five operatic performances, without a doubt. Please keep in mind that I don't actually have a list of top performances, and granted it's hard to really make comparisons like this, but she is just stunning. Things like this remind you of why you like the artform in the first place.

Let's talk briefly and only semi-relevantly about the word "rape." Now, we probably all know that our current meaning has not always been the meaning; that it used to just generally mean taking something away by force. The rape of the sabine women and Pope's "Rape of the Lock" do not involve rape rape (I mean, okay, the former could,but you're being anachronistic if you're saying that that's what the name means). The play that this opera was based on is twentieth-century, so the word definitely meant what it means, but it's possible that the title is along the lines of the earlier use--I mean, that's what it usually means in pieces of this sort where it's in the title--and although in this production it's pretty darned unambiguous, it probably could be played differently if one were so inclined. That would get icky pretty quickly, so I don't recommend it, but it's worth thinking about, I suppose.

Am I correct in thinking that the phrase "rape and pillage" is in the same category as redundant legal phrases like "null and void," "cease and desist," and "assault and battery," where they wanted to include words from both French and Anglo-Saxon roots so there would be no possibility of misunderstanding? We don't think of "rape and pillage" like that because these days the words have two different means and because "pillage" is old-fashioned and not, as far as I know, a current legal term.

Well, that had nothing to do with anything. Sometimes I just have a thought in my head and want to say it even if it doesn't seem substantial enough to warrant its own blog post. But the point is: THIS OPERA RULEZ DUDE. Miss it at your peril.