"History," the French writer Chateaubriand once declared, "is only facts dolled up and fashioned by a writer." John Lloyd Davies's startling new Royal Opera production of Britten's The Rape of Lucretia opens with the Male Chorus - an uptight, academic-looking bloke - bashing away at a typewriter in an attempt to fashion a coherent narrative from a mass of fact and supposition.
The opera itself tells and retells its story from multiple perspectives. A brutal tale of sexual violence and political manipulation, first notated by the Roman historian Livy, is reworked as a parable of Christian suffering and redemption. The resulting amalgam has been much criticised as unwieldy and ideologically confused, though Lloyd Davies is determined to make a virtue out of the opera's central flaw.
Livy's text is hung on gilded banners around the auditorium. The Male and Female Choruses (Hubert Francis and Victoria Nava) are incapable of impartiality as they tell their tale, and their religious convictions are questionable throughout. Francis, initially excited by the thought of Tarquinius seducing Lucretia, is racked by guilt as the attempt turns to rape. Nava, appalled by what she sees, later challenges his involvement by throwing in his face a cloth stained with Lucretia's blood.
Lloyd Davies will have none of the widely voiced criticism that Britten depicts Lucretia as "asking for it", and paints instead a grim portrait of the male collusion that makes this rape possible. Grant Doyle's Tarquinius is a morally irresponsible bully, egged on to crime by Jared Holt's sexist, manipulative Junius. Matthew Rose's Collatinus, meanwhile, is dangerously proprietorial about his wife's fidelity.
All three are ultimately responsible for Lucretia's tragedy. Christine Rice, in the finest performance of her career to date, establishes at the outset the sexual contentment she feels in her relationship with her husband. After the rape, she captures Lucretia's traumatised self-laceration with unwatchable vividness, though the ultimate betrayal comes when Collatinus, with Junius hovering at his side, smugly announces she should be "forgiven" for what she has "given". She reels from his words as from a blow. Suicide is only moments away.
The opera is powerfully conducted by Alexander Briger, while the cramped space of the Linbury Studio adds immeasurably to its claustrophobic atmosphere. A rewarding, deeply disturbing experience.
· Repeated tomorrow and on Tuesday. Box office: 020 7304 4000.
