But the orchestra frequently drowns out the cast members. Under the conductor Dean Buck, the orchestra gives a bold, tautly paced account of Britten’s powerful score, which shifts from frenzied agitation to stretches of mysterious delicacy. If this intimate setting lends visceral immediacy to the production, it also creates problems with balance. Clearly, they have told this tale before. In this production, with costumes by Rachel Dainer-Best, the Male Chorus (the tenor Michael Kuhn) and Female Chorus (the soprano Katy Lindhart) look like an ominous, slightly goth couple. As written by Britten, with a libretto by Ronald Duncan, the story is given context by two characters: Male Chorus and Female Chorus. ![]() The company’s young cast members give fiercely committed performances, and the staging intriguingly incorporates live video elements, with close-ups of the singers projected on a back wall. The orchestra of 13 players, just off to the side of the staging area, filled the space with Britten’s gnashing, frenzied music. Her horrified husband, Collatinus ( Adrian Rosas, a stalwart bass-baritone with a burnished voice), collapsed to his knees in grief. Overcome with shame, Lucretia blames herself for what has happened.Īs directed by Laine Rettmer, Lucretia, the rich-voiced mezzo-soprano Kristin Gornstein, stabbed herself and fell practically at the feet of audience members sitting in the first row of folding chairs. Lucretia, the virtuous wife of an honorable Roman general, having been raped by the tyrannical Etruscan prince Tarquinius, who treats the cowered city of Rome like the whores he frequents nightly, kills herself in the presence of her husband, her old nurse and her young maid. ![]() The harrowing climax of the story, set in Rome in 509 B.C., comes toward the end of this intense, nearly two-hour chamber opera, first performed in 1946. Immersive is certainly the word to describe this company’s compelling new production of Britten’s “The Rape of Lucretia,” which opened Wednesday night in the salonlike main room of 501 Union in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn. Loft Opera aims to break down barriers between performers and audiences by presenting immersive productions in alternative spaces in Brooklyn.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |