|
|
Article: NEC finds redemption in violent 'Lucretia'.(Arts and Lifestyle)
- Article from:
- The Boston Herald
- Article date:
- January 29, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 Boston Herald. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
"The Rape of Lucretia," presented by NEC Opera at the Emerson Majestic Theatre, Boston, through tomorrow.
There's no opera quite as politically incorrect as Benjamin Britten's 1946 "The Rape of Lucretia." Its heroine, the rape victim of the title, kills herself out of shame over having not resisted her weapon-wielding attacker to the point of death.
Then, more confusingly, the opera ends with the suggestion that Lucretia could have survived with the forgiveness of Christ. But since the opera is set in the Rome of 500 B.C., that wasn't an option.
But as peculiar as the messages it sends may be, "Lucretia" is a durable work. And that fact was ...