Hello Opera Fans!
My name is Nicholas Borg, and I am super excited to be playing the role of Tarquinius in MYOpera’s The Rape of Lucretia.
All of Benjamin Britten’s operas, and particularly Lucretia have always been fascinating to me, and last year I ended up writing a paper entitled “Benjamin Britten’s Depictions of Society Against the Innocence of the Individual”. This paper heavily featured our show, describing how many of Britten’s operas include a society putting pressure on an individual until they have lost their innocence, and how Britten represents this musically. Hopefully my musical explanations aren’t too nerdy!
Having spent a lot of time researching this major theme in Britten’s works before starting rehearsal, it has helped to give me an interesting perspective on the piece and helped me to understand the musical world that our characters inhabit. An especially important aspect of the metaphorical nature of the opera is the historic society of Rome, and the role that women fill within.
In the Roman society that Lucretia occupies, the requirements for honour amongst men is of the utmost importance, and a man’s honour is secured by the chastity of his wife.[1] Junius, a Roman General, even says “the Romans, being wanton, worship chastity”. Lucretia is the only chaste wife of the three male characters, and Britten represents this innocence through the pure key of C Major, which is evident during her lullaby in Act II before the rape. This key becomes tainted by Tarquinius’ Key of E-Major and the rest of the opera has her focused around the pitch B (the Dominant of E), including when she is recounting the events of the rape to her husband Collatinus, she sings an “oblique account of her experience while obsessively intoning the note B through seventy four iterations without interruption, as orchestral memories of earlier scenes provide narrative cues.” this B is a stain on her chastity.[2] Phillip Brett says that through Lucretia’s rape, “Tarquinius has managed to make his desire her crime.”[3]
According to J.P.E Harper-Scott, Lucretia has very little choice in the matter of her chastity because of the pressures of the society in which she lives. He states that in the patriarchal society a woman is defined as “a person who is chaste in order to uphold a superstructure that benefits men…it is either that, or non-existence.”[4]. At the end of her aria, she even sings her name in the melodic motif originally reserved for the male characters to sing her name. She has lost her identity as an individual within the society due to the pressures of the patriarchy of the Roman Kingdom.
This sort of research and examination has given me an understanding of the kind of society that could create my character and the circumstances in which he finds himself through an exploration of Britten’s harmonic language. I am so glad that I have had the chance to work on this masterpiece, and the opportunity explore these characters with our superb cast and artistic team.
Nicholas Borg as Tarquinis, The Rape of Lucretia 2016 Photo: Daniel Denino, Self Limited Photography
Sources:
Brett, Philip. “Grimes and Lucretia.” In Music and Sexuality in Britten. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2006.
Harper-Scott, J.P.E. “Post-War Women in Britten.” In Rethinking Britten, 86-102. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.
[1] J.P.E Harper-Scott, “Post-War Women in Britten.” In Rethinking Britten, 96.
[2] Harper-Scott, “Post-War Women in Britten” 98.
[3] Philip Brett, “Grimes and Lucretia”, 68.
[4] Harper-Scott, “Post-War Women in Britten” 97.
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