Ruthless politicians using a foreign threat to hide a local evil; brutish men dismissing all women as whores; soldiers meting out violence on the innocent. The themes explored in Benjamin Britten’s chilling chamber opera The Rape of Lucretia, set in ancient Rome, have a weary familiarity to present-day audiences, perhaps best encapsulated in the line: “All tyrants fall though tyranny persists.”
That familiarity was all too stark at the work’s premiere in 1946, so soon after war had consumed the world. But unlike that first performance, there’s not a distancing toga or sandal in sight in Oliver Mears’s new Royal Opera realisation, which showcases a vibrant cast drawn from the Jette Parker and Britten Pears young artist programmes. Mears moves the action firmly into the 21st century, making Lucretia a glamorous celebrity, posing for a glossy magazine shoot on a simple sofa in a charmless modern living room.
