BY CELINE CHONG
Edgy. Provocative. Confronting.
Young bass baritone Jeremy Kleeman has certainly stuck his foot in the door of the Australian opera scene, and this upcoming production of The Rape of Lucretia might be his most profound yet.
In the lead-up to opening night, Jeremy chats with us about Dark Mofo’s modern retelling of a Benjamin Britten classic, which will unite the Victorian Opera with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra.
This upcoming season of The Rape of Lucretia is looking to be quite an intense production. Tell us about the role your character plays in the opera (without giving too much away, of course).
We all have very interesting roles to play in this production because Kip Williams has applied a gender-swapping device to the opera in order to shine a light on certain aspects of the piece. As such, I end up playing both the role of Collatinus (Lucretia’s husband), and Lucretia herself at different stages of the performance.
It is certainly the most dramatically challenging role I have had the chance to perform.
Could you elaborate on some of the overarching themes that Britten explores through this work?
The opera itself explores the intersection of love and politics in ancient Rome, the expectations and limitations of being a woman in the time period, the misogynistic views and behavior of men at the time, the value given to chastity and virtue and its political implications, and an interesting use of Christianity to frame and make philosophical sense of the destructive events.
Have you found these themes personally difficult to engage with as a young artist? Or do you feel that being younger brings unique elements to your interpretation?
It is a confronting subject matter, and as a company we spent the first few days discussing the themes and action at length to understand how everyone had come to interpret the piece. It was a very insightful discussion, and interesting to hear differing view points from people of different life backgrounds.
After the discussion, I felt like we were all approaching the opera very well-informed and in the same context, regardless of our differences. My character, Collatinus is one traditionally played by an older performer, but this is a generally younger cast than typically seen for this opera, and the manner in which we perform our production sees age and gender become less relevant.
This production in particular by Kip Williams seems to be quite a modern retelling. How do you think this has an impact on the opera’s messages?
Kip Williams set out asking the question: ‘In performing this work, what ideas are we perpetuating in modern society?’; and as such has framed it in an ever-present 2018 context, with the singers all appearing as a company of actors in modern clothing. This has allowed Kip to deconstruct and highlight particular elements of the story, such as the misogyny of the men at the beginning, which becomes particularly obvious when being mimed by a female performer and presented in a modern context, and the underlying Christian framework of reference Britten has applied.
Finally, how are you hoping your audience will react to the show? What are you, as a creative team, looking to convey that will be relevant today?
This production is one of the most cutting-edge pieces of theatre I have been a part of. The deep consideration that has gone into what a modern audience could take from the work has resulted in what I believe to be a richly thought-provoking experience. I look forward to audiences taking up the challenge of interpreting the deconstructed version of the opera, and leaving both moved and pondering how the themes are relevant in their own experience.
I think it is particularly interesting to consider in this production why certain actions or rituals can have a very different quality when it is a man performing the female character’s action or vice versa. I will be interested to see if our audiences are leaving questioning their own biases and expectations that they may be bringing into a theatre before interpreting a work.
The bleak ending also involves a confronting question of the audience with no easy answer. I will be interested to see how audiences react to the way in which we pose the question. I expect the Dark Mofo audience will really embrace this production.
Jeremy, it’s great to hear your involvement in such a show. Tell us a little about what else you’ve been up to.
Thank you! It is a production we are all very proud of.
I have been fortunate to have been well-supported through the early stages of my career by Melba Opera Trust and Victorian Opera, amongst other organisations. With the former, through the Joseph Sambrook Opera Scholarship and Heather Begg Memorial Award; and Victorian Opera through their Master of Music (Opera Performance) with Melbourne Conservatorium of Music. Subsequently, through performing in many of their productions, including Stuart Maunder’s Sondheim trilogy and my first leading role, Magus in Voyage to the Moon, a baroque pastiche presented on a national tour in collaboration with Musica Viva, I was nominated for both a Helpmann and Green Room Award.
Other career highlights have included the world premiere of George Palmer’s opera based on Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet, singing Mozart’s Figaro on tour with Opera Australia, and of course this production.
See The Rape of Lucretia from June 15-17 in the Theatre Royal, Hobart, as part of Dark Mofo. (The 2017 season was co-produced by the Victorian Opera and Sydney Chamber Opera, and presented by SCO and Carriageworks.)
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Images supplied: Zan Wimberley.
