Anyone going to Glyndebourne in 1946 hoping for a little post-war cheer must have got a shock to the system. Never one to repeat himself, Benjamin Britten produced in The Rape of Lucretia not just a complete contrast to the grand elemental sweep of Peter Grimes, but a meditation on human suffering and the possibility of divine justice on an intimate, chamber scale.
The work, set in early Roman history, is full of Britten’s characteristically deft orchestration. Only thirteen instruments in all, and yet the sound can be amply full-sized for the grander descriptive moments, such as Tarquin’s dash to Rome on horseback, as much as tellingly minimalist in individual gestures, such as the eerie harp motif at the start that seems to summon up tension and a proleptic prickle of lust right from the start. While the forces are small, the range of emotions is broad, both in crude brutality and exquisite lyrical interludes. It is a tribute to both composer and conductor that even in such a huge space as the Hackney Empire, every musical detail hit home.
This was a uniformly excellent cast with no weak links. William Duncan’s libretto is highly literary, and often rather too wordy and overripe with imagery. But all the singers projected it with skilful diction. In the title role Clare Presland had a contained dignity and presence throughout that made her final scenes of anguish all the more telling. As Tarquinius, Kieran Rayner gave a fine vocal performance but needed to find more thuggish menace, uncongenial as that must be in this very difficult role. Without it the repeated mellifluous ‘Goodnights’ that end Act One lack the sense of tense foreboding that make it such an effective half-time curtain.
As Collatinus, Trevor Eliot Bowes had the vocal nobility and acting presence and empathy to explain why his marriage to Lucretia was so meaningful, and Edmund Danon made a lot more than usual out of the key conniving role of Junius. Rosie Loman and Jane Monari were sweet-toned but well contrasted as Lucretia’s two attendants of differing generations. However, the most notable characterisations came from the two chorus roles sung by William Morgan and Jenny Stafford. These slippery parts, both characters and commentators, are very hard to bring off, and yet they were wholly credible as they clambered over the set and slipped inside and beyond the action.
Even so, they did not wholly convince me that placing a Christian redemptive framework around this tragedy really helps the opera’s delivery in the theatre: the story tells itself effectively without this unearned and over-neat conclusion. But the music and characterisation and setting pulled us back into a more open-ended empathy with pain and grief. All credit too to set designer, Eleanor Bull, for a very practical matching of military and domestic settings and a memorable symbolic solution to the challenge of depicting rape on stage.
This production mostly rises to the challenges of a difficult and demanding opera. It is a little too polite at times in underplaying the ugliness of the theme, but in musical performance and depth of characterisation it is fully to the measure of the composer’s intentions.
English Touring Opera
Director: Robin Norton-Hale
Conductor: Gerry Cornelius
Cast: Edmund Danon, Trevor Eliot Bowes, Rosie Loman, Jane Monari, William Morgan, Clare Presland, Kieran Rayner, Jenny Stafford
4 October 2025 and touring
2 hrs with interval
Photo Credit: Richard Hubert Smith