“L’Incoronazione di Poppea” by Ivor Bolton

I listened to Monteverdi’s “L’Incoronazione di Poppea” conducted by Ivor Bolton.

Monteverdi’s music is addictive. Especially this opera can be very addictive. His music is so simple yet, its simple vocal lines have such gorgeous melody lines.

This production used only nine instrumentalists including Christina Pluhar. So the orchestration is very simple, authentic and subtle with some modern mature cool sound elements. Their music is played almost as the background music. This is very different from other Monteverdi productions I listened to which are more vibrant along with simple vocal lines.

The scores for the last two operas including this opera within the three surviving operas by Monteverdi have only vocal lines and one unspecific instrument line.  Therefore even though Baroque music has more space for interpretation by musicians compare to the later music in general, this is much more so especially in Monteverdi’s music.

Monteverdi fans like me always love to use the word “authentic” when we talk about his music. I don’t think anyone can definitely say how much period instruments to be used and how period sound musicians should play to be “authentic”. We all just assume what ‘authentic“ should be like in his music. This is the reason why his music sounds so different depends on each musician and production.

Soprano, Anna Caterina Antonacci sung Poeppea in this production. She has one of the best beautiful Poppea voice.  Countertenor, David Daniels sung Nero. He sung at the very high soprano range which I love much better than when he sung in Handel’s “Rinaldo”, because when the higher he sings, his voice becomes more beautiful and freer from the muffled sound his lower range has.  

Their voices have incredibly beautiful textures which almost sound like they don’t belong to this world. And their duets are the steamiest Nero & Poppea duets I’ve ever heard. Because their voices have so much similar texture, they are entwined with each other and harmonized as one. In fact, when I first listened to their duets, I couldn’t tell who’s singing which.

About the rest of the singers, I have the mix impressions. They all sounded wonderful and they’re not bad singers.

Ottavia, Nero’s wife is mezzo-soprano role. Nadja Michael who sung this role has beautiful lighter voice and sounded more like soprano which didn’t have enough weight this role requires.  As much as she tried, I couldn’t hear the Ottavia’s laments in her voice strong enough, which are one of the highlights in this opera.

Countertenor, Axel Kohler who sung Otto also sung in Handel’s “Rinaldo” along with David Daniels. He’s not bad singer but his singings in either productions didn’t have much expression.

Kurt Moll who sung Seneca (philosopher and Nero’s teacher/adviser) has very low Darth Vadar type bass voice (actually much lower than Darth Vader). His voice is very powerful and has such dramatic texture as God has just spoken. Seneca’s death scene is also one of the highlights in this opera and when he sings it, it felt empty just like one side of this character.  His singing was lacking real emotion which is another half of the same character.

Arnalta’s “Oblivion Soave” sung by the countertenor was not bad but it was not the best neither.

I liked the singer who sung Drusilla.

Even though I once said that I love every sound of Monteverdi, I’ve never felt the Nero and Poppea’s last and most famous duet, “Pur ti miro” was written by him (Even the sublime Rial/Jaroussky rendition couldn’t convince me). This one single duet is so different from the rest of the opera. It is too “light” and too “pop” for Monteverdi. His music might be simple but it always has certain weight and never being “light”.

I later learned that because of his old age, this opera was said to be possible collaborative work with other composers and Monteverdi being the principle composer. I also learned that I’m not the only believer.

Either way, I didn’t so much care for this duet before. But I became to like it when I heard it sung by Anna and David in this production. Because their rendition is the slowest I’ve ever heard and as the result, it felt much richer.

But the video above is not “Pur ti miro”. I still love their rest of the other duets far better. The quality of them is just incomparable.

I also have to strongly emphasize again how really well written the lyrics for this opera by Giovanni Francesco Busenello is. His lyrics is the most intelligent, poetic and beautifully written opera lyrics I’ve ever read (I read that his day time job was lawyer. I guess you should never underestimate lawyers in confinement of fine prints).

…

Poppea
Idol of my heart, now the hour has come when I shall delight in my love.

Poppea/Nerone

Nothing more shall come between us.

 I no longer have a heart in my breast: you have stolen it from me, yes,

you have stolen my heart from me with the serene light of your beautiful eyes,

Because of you, my beloved, I have a heart no more in my breast.

You who have pierced my heart, ah, now hold me in your loving arms.

These blessed hours will have no end when I am lost in you;

 in you I shall be found again and shall return to lose myself again,

 my love, for in you I want to be lost forever.