“L’Incoronazione di Poppea” by Marc Minkowsky

I watched Monteverdi’s opera  “L’Incoronazione di Poppea” (The coronation of Poppea) conducted by Marc Minkowsky and staring Anne Sofie von Otter as Nero.

She has one of the most beautiful voices I’ve ever heard. Her voice has elegant beauty with quality of intelligence. She sang the role of Nero rather much better than any other singers besides Philippe Jaroussky and Sarah Connolly.

The orchestration was much closer to authentic Monteverdi tunes than the Emmanuelle Haim version but it was still little too Classical for my taste. All the singers sang in Monteverdian style.

And yet, the production itself was the second round of disappointment. They had most suffocating monotone costumes, which cover up their entire bodies, the cheapest stage settings and the awful stage directions. I don’t think there was any acting direction because many of the singers’ acting were very cheep and boring. I don’t think even any high school performance would be this bad. I was surprised by the fact that they actually had a stage director.

This opera is supposed to be one of the most sexually charged operas. And yet, there is no any on stage sexual or not even emotional chemistry between the main two characters (in spite of how beautiful these singers are).

So I closed my eyes and listened to the music only. It got better.  But yet, even their music itself had some problems. The voices of the main two characters never harmonized together. (When it does, that’s where all the sexual charges are coming from.)

The role of Nero has to be mezzo- soprano-to-soprano range (I watched some clips which were sung by tenors but they just simply don’t sound good or right). And Poppea has to be mid to higher soprano range. Mirelle Delunsch who played Poppea often sang much lower than Anne who is mezzo-soprano. Mirelle’s voice is beautiful but little too low, thick and darker to sing this role. And her voice sounded somewhat distanced and non-emotional when Anne’s voice’s was much expressive.

I also didn’t so much care for the mezzo-soprano who sang the role of Otto neither. Her voice was weak and often sang with chest voice. This role has characteristic weakness and emotionally tormented. So I prefer this role to be sung by countertenors with certain male darker hue in their voices instead of  “vasty” mezzo-soprano. I liked the singers who sang Drusilla and Alnarta. Alnarta’s great aria, “Oblivion Soave” was wonderful.