 |
 |
|
|
|
|||
|
|||
 |
|||
A soldier, a wife, a war: CFA presents The Rape of Lucretia
By David J. Craig
|
|
Elizabeth Peele (CFA’05) (center) a student in the CFA school of music’s master’s program in voice, rehearses a scene from The Rape of Lucretia with BU Opera Institute students Randall Ball and Courtnay Symonds. Photo by Vernon Doucette |
|
|
|
Benjamin Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia, with its verbose, highfalutin libretto by Ronald Duncan and minimal orchestration, is one tough sing. A typical production is no breeze for audiences to follow, either, because the opera — which tells the tragic story of a woman’s rape and suicide in sixth-century Rome while her husband is away at war — is more about ideas than action.
Jim Petosa, however, insists that The Rape of Lucretia “is much more visceral in its dramatic content than its reputation would suggest.” As stage director of the Opera
Institute’s production, at the BU Theatre February 24 through February 27, he intends to exploit the work’s elemental energy, engaging audience members’ senses and minds.
“This opera generally is low on melodrama, but we’ve discovered in rehearsals that it is a very charged experience rather than simply an esoteric one, and we’re exploring that heavily,” says Petosa, a CFA professor and director of the school of theatre arts. “Some productions of The Rape of Lucretia detach you from its visceral content, but we’re making choices that heighten it.”
In traditional productions, for instance, two chorus roles, sung by a man and a woman narrator, are presented as detached observers. “They’re often dressed in 20th-century tuxedos and play a passive storytelling role,” says Petosa. But in this production, the chorus figures frequently recite the thoughts of the main characters, control the action, and even directly interact with the singers: for example, as the Etruscan prince Tarquinius rides to Rome from the battlefield of the war with Greece to attempt to seduce his friend Collatinus’ wife, Lucretia, in order to show that she is not chaste, the male chorus becomes Tarquinius’ horse.
Part of the effect, says second-year Opera Institute student Harry Baechtel, who plays Tarquinius, is to draw in audience members, by their association with the narrators, to feel implicated in Lucretia’s tragedy. “There’s a lot of Christian commentary in this opera, and I think we’re trying to broaden the meaning of those passages, so that they become about mankind’s nature in general,” says Baechtel. “We want the audience to feel a part of the tribe taking part in the [sacrificial] ritual on stage.”
To that end, says Petosa, the male chorus and female chorus parts are “überpriest and überpriestess figures” who illuminate how the innocent Lucretia’s suicide eventually has a redemptive power for her community, as her death inspires a Roman uprising against Etruscan rule. “The point being made, I think, is that, like Christ, anyone can be called upon to sacrifice,” says Petosa. The opera’s Christian moralizing “is just silly if it is presented as reverential. The message is really much more scary, evocative, and challenging than that.”
Scary and challenging can describe the opera’s vocal parts, as well. “The text is extremely wordy, and we’ve spent a lot of time in rehearsal just practicing speaking it,” says Baechtel. “There are so many layers of meaning, and audience members probably won’t comprehend everything, but you have to make sure they can at least make out the broad brush strokes.
“The rape scene in particular is very difficult vocally because there’s a lot of big, loud aggressive singing,” he continues. “Allowing yourself to go all the way into this state of crazy animal possession, while keeping some level of vocal control, is very tough.”
In addition, the opera’s small 13-piece orchestra demands an unusual amount of vocal intimacy, says musical director Bill Lumpkin, a CFA assistant professor of music. “When you have a small ensemble, there’s much more interplay between the singers and the orchestra, such as in how they can come in and out of the music,” he says. “The major challenge, though, is still getting the text across, since this is an opera primarily of ideas. The diction is important, obviously, but in order to communicate the important ideas, we also have to marry the words to the sounds of the singers’ voices and to their movements.”
The Rape of Lucretia is a perfect choice for the Opera Institute, says Petosa, because it is highly demanding in terms of both dramatic and vocal skills. “The singers in the institute come to us with very strong musical skills and vocal abilities,” he says, “and one of the things that our performance program seeks to do is help them become mature actors, as well.
“I think audience members are going to be treated to all the richness and possibilities of what a good, classic tragedy has to offer,” he adds. “It’s going to be moving, arresting visually, musically satisfying, extremely well sung, and it’s going to pack a few surprises. People who know this opera will be quite stunned, and those who don’t will find plenty of reasons to like it.”
Performances of The Rape of Lucretia are at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, February 24, at 8 p.m. on Friday, February 25, and Saturday, February 26, and at 2 p.m. on Sunday, February 27, at the Boston University Theatre Mainstage. Tickets are $15 and $10 for the general public; $10 and $8 for alumni, Huntington Theatre Company subscribers, students, and senior citizens. Members of the BU community can receive one free ticket with a BU ID at the door on the day of performance, subject to availability. To order tickets or for more information, call 617-266-0800.
18
February 2005
Boston University
Office of University Relations