SFMOMA is pleased to host the West Coast premiere of the acclaimed video musical The Rape of the Sabine Women. The work recasts Rome’s founding myth of abduction and peaceful settlement as a chaotic fall from midcentury idealism. Constructed as a 1960s period piece, the film presents the Romans as government agents, the Sabines as butchers’ daughters, and their union as an affluent, International Style idyll. Inverting the Roman source, the piece tracks not the origins of empire, but the end of utopia. The May 01 and 02 programs feature live musical performances, and the May 03 program includes a panel discussion.