The Rape of Lucretia: gender trouble in ancient Rome

Late last month, some people in the audience at the Royal Opera House booed a performance of Gioacchino Rossini’s Guillaume Tell, which featured a lurid gang rape scene not in the original libretto. (The scene has been toned down for later performances.) What a contrast to Glyndebourne’s production of Benjamin Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia (1946)—a work that takes in the full horror of a woman’s violation, but that is also a subtle psychological study. This was one of the most intensely powerful opera performances I have seen for a long time, and one of the most thought-provoking. The director Fiona Shaw highlighted some fascinating ideas: notably, the gender politics of male-dominated, militaristic societies.

Britten coined the term “chamber opera” for his version of the Lucretia story (originally found in Livy). It’s an appropriate term in more ways than one: the musicians in the pit could fit into a bedroom, but the opera is also intimately claustrophobic. The year is 500BC and the Etruscan Tarquinius Superbus rules Rome with hard-edged tyranny. Carousing with his soldiers Collatinus and Junius outside the city walls, he tells them he’s “tired of willing women,” and needs sharper pleasures to sate his sexual appetite. Junius tells him about Collatinus’s wife Lucretia, the only woman in Rome who has stayed chaste while the soldiers are away. Tarquinius’s interest is piqued and, to the sound of a martial masculine drumbeat, he rides back to the city. Lucretia, whose music strikes a gentler note, is busy running the household with her maidservants. When Tarquinius arrives, though, the brutal expectations of the title are fulfilled.

Under Shaw’s direction, the stage becomes a dirt-filled archeological dig presided over by the male and female chorus, here presented as a married couple who not only comment on the action but are directly affected by it. Disturbingly, when the rape takes place they seem almost turned on by it.  Their roles add another layer of meaning to an already complex work. Lucretia (sung and acted superbly by Christine Rice) exhibits all the qualities of a loyal wife and a good mother. But she confesses that Tarquinius (played as ultra-masculine but also vulnerable by Duncan Rock) has been on her mind: “In the forest of my dreams you have always been the tiger,” she says. Is she secretly attracted to Tarquinius? Where is the line drawn between rape and ravishment?

These are tough questions, and it is to the credit of this fine production that they are raised without being unnecessarily clarified. The rape itself is staged symbolically rather than explicitly. Lucretia’s white dress is ripped, and then stained after she is buried in the dirt. Tarquinius doesn’t glory in his victory; he seems a bit shocked at what he has done.

In Livy, Lucretia’s rape provokes a rebellion against a tyrant. In Britten’s opera, though, there is no triumphal revenge. Junius, the man who had encouraged Tarquinius to attack Lucretia in the first place, uses his rape as an excuse to unseat him. Was this his plan all along? Collatinus is devastated, though you sense also ashamed of his wife. Lucretia feels guilt of a different kind, perhaps motivated by her obscure desire for Tarquinius.

Another prominent theme is Christianity. The chorus present the action from a religious perspective but in this production it is mixed with pagan elements. The final tableau has a dismembered statue of Lucretia arranged in the form of a cross. She becomes the victim who anticipates Christ’s sacrifice. But it's difficult to find much consolation at the end of two hours of taunt, excruciatingly brilliant, music drama.

Prospect are holding a series of discussions at Glyndebourne this summer, including one on The Rape of Lucretia. Click here for details