The Rape of Lucretia was first performed in 1946 and has become the most intractable of Benjamin Britten's operas. As the work of a committed pacifist, its demands for spiritual awareness in the face of human suffering are clear, though we may now find its attitudes disquieting.

The opera dramatises the rape of the married Lucretia by Tarquinius, son of the king of Rome, and her subsequent suicide - events that led to the ousting of the monarchy and the founding of the Roman republic. But Britten's take on this narrative is suspect. He sees rape as being primarily about sex rather than violence, and it is unclear whether he portrays Lucretia as "asking for it".

The libretto also falls short of expressing outrage. Fury, voiced by the two-faced Junius, is swallowed up in the opera's final swerve towards the contemplation of Christ's Passion as the supreme solace for human misery.

David McVicar's English National Opera production, first seen in 2001, attempts to unravel the ideological mess. Aware that this is the work of a man dealing with history as written by men, McVicar places the opera's two commentators, the Male and Female choruses (Timothy Robinson and Orla Boylan), in conflict, with Boylan rejecting Robinson's Christian solution. Elsewhere, however, a queasy air of ambivalent sexuality reigns. Christopher Maltman's Tarquinius spends too long flashing his naked torso before homing in on Sarah Connolly's Lucretia.

The opera is beautifully sung, with outstanding contributions from Boylan and Connolly. Paul Daniel's conducting occasionally overemphasises detail at the expense of propulsion. It is an unnerving experience, though it doesn't match the shocking power of Graham Vick's previous ENO production.