The Rape of Lucrecia at Houston Grand Opera

The story of Lucretia has inspired writers from Ovid in ancient Rome and Shakespeare to Thornton Wilder; painters like like Titian, Botticelli and Raphael immortalized the tragedy on vivid canvasses. The cruel tale is familiar in any century. Benjamin Britten and Ronald Duncan wrote this opera in 1946 as an allegorical exploration of the Second World War’s devastation; the intimate and supremely moving result is a plea, perhaps a prayer, for our redemption.