NO BETTER time than Easter to plead the cause of Benjamin Britten’s chamber opera. Forged in the same white fire of creative energy as Peter Grimes, Lucretia can remain problematic because of the apparent moralising of the framing Chorus. But watching this play of passion in a week of Passions certainly put things into context.
Rape of Lucretia (After Guido Cagnacci)
Rape of Lucretia
Hilary Finch at St John's, Smith Square [Times Online, 26 Mar 05]
NO BETTER time than Easter to plead the cause of Benjamin Britten's chamber opera. Forged in the same white fire of creative energy as Peter Grimes, Lucretia can remain problematic because of the apparent moralising of the framing Chorus. But watching this play of passion in a week of Passions certainly put things into context.
Peter Hoare's robust tenor, and Geraldine McGreevy's serene soprano, as Male and Female Chorus, urged us to see "through eyes which have wept with Christ's own tears". And, for those with ears to hear, Britten is not Christianising so much as providing an archetype of the eternal redemptive man of sorrows.