L’Incolonazione di Poppea by William Christie

William Christie conducted this production of Monteverdi’s brilliant opera, L’Incolonazione di Poppea with the orchestration by Les Arts Florisants.

His orchestration is simple, sensitive and refined. His music is sometimes tender and at other times, intensive. They used only 18 instrumentalists that have the most wonderful authentic period sounds.  And this is one of the best productions for this opera.

Pier Luigi Pizzi created the set, costume designs and the stage direction. His production is arty, classy and first rate. This is the intensive production with very minimum amount of comedy. The stage sets are based on black and white marble or granite patterned structures, which reminded me chessboards. All the costumes were visually accentuated by either feathery, shiny, glossy, glistering and glazing or glittering textures with strong contrasting colors. And all the performers who were wearing them reminded me of chess pieces.

This opera is about the complex human natures involving love, sex and politics. How Monteverdi and his librettist partner, Giovanni Francesco Busenello told the story is very cunning and clever. Every single main character in this opera does most despicable things immediately right after they do most sublime, virtuous or commendable things, and vise versa. Each scene has its own shock value one after another. You love them one moment and next moment, you absolutely hate them. And because Monteverdi and Busenello told the story so well in the way that you really cannot hate them completely because as Max Emanuel Cencic put it so well in his interview, “After 3 or 400 years later, we still identify ourselves with these characters.”

All the singers are excellent and sung at the highest level.

Perky American soprano, Danielle De Niese played Poppea. She looked like beautiful earthly Goddess who just came out of the Mickey Mouse Club. She’s simply delightful and irresistibly charming to watch as she always is on stage.

She has very beautiful earthy and modern voice. I prefer little more elegant and softer voice than hers for this role but she knows her Poppea and tunes with this character so well. She sung it wonderfully in this production as much as she did in her previous production of the same opera.

When the historical Nero first saw Poppea, he was so struck by her beauty and in the middle of one night, he went to her house and begged her then husband, Ottone to let him see her.

Nerone was played by eloquent countertenor, Philippe Jaroussky. Because of his conventional big operatic stylized acting and the Goth make-up he had on, he looked like capricious temperamental neurotic Gothic punk rocker. They must’ve had hard time making him look like tyrannical emperor though for he would never look like one completely with his natural gentleness and kid-ish-ness still intact.

Both he and Danielle are very beautiful people and much closer to the ages of the historical Nero and Poppea.  So it is much convincing than other older and not so prettier opera singers playing these characters, especially when they sing poetic words like, “Let me encircle you with my arms as your beauty encircle my heart” for this is very much what these characters sing to each other throughout the opera.

His voice is also very earthy and modern. And yet, I don’t know anyone who sings the 17th century music so well as he does. He’s very good at capturing and expressing the nuances and the essence in the music of the era.  He sung one of the best Nerone and he especially sung the lyrical pieces in this opera most exquisitely.

This production had the best singing cerebration scene. There are many sexually steamy operas but until this opera, I’d never encountered the simulation or the suggestion of the actual act itself musically. This whole scene was even written, as the way it did is still amazing to me. It’s shockingly perverted and humanly delightful at the same time as it was written brilliantly and beautifully.

Ottone, who is Nerone’s rival over Poppea was sung by another highly talented countertenor, Max Emanuel Cencic wonderfully. He sung one of the best Ottone. His voice and singing were very rich and he played the most heart-felt, humanly touching Ottone. His portrait of this character was so sympathetic to the degree that I wanted to hug the man. I’m sure the most audience felt the same way.

Expressive Mezzo-soprano, Anna Bonitatibus also sung Ottavia wonderfully. Her voice texture is very beautiful with rich weight and she expressed all the emotional aspects of this character’s spiral downfall excellently.

This opera is one of these works that each time you visit, there is always new discovery and it gets deeper. The last time I listened to her in this opera, she sung the words, “If there is no honor or God, I would be my own deity.” This is the ultimate expression to describe her character, Ottavia who is puritanically frigid. There is no wonder why Nerone disliked her (even though he acts in the similar manner but with the complete opposite reasoning.)

Bass, Antonio Abete who sung Seneca had very good powerful low voice. But he did not sing “Solitudine amata” with the depth it requires. He didn’t have lowest bass voice but his voice carried the intensive quality and he sung faster than other singers for this role. So this intensity was highlighted especially when he had philosophical and political argument with Nerone over divorcing Ottavia and marrying Poppea.

Nerone is all about “emotion” while Seneca is all about “reason.” Seneca knows all the words to call white black that frustrates Nerone. While all the main characters have changing multi personalities, Seneca alone doesn’t change throughout the opera. His complexities come from the conflicting observations of him by others. The higher class calls him “wise philosopher” and the lower class sees him as “snobby, corrupt hypocrite with empty golden words”.

The writing descriptions for Seneca by Giovanni Francesco Busenello is so skillful, there is this flashy ambiguity about him that you really cannot grasp him entirely throughout the opera except only at the death scene. At the death scene, you can see a grain of “real” him when he expresses his sorrow. And yet even then, you’re still not sure what “real” Seneca is.

Tenor, Robert Burt who sung Arnalta was very good. This role is Poppea’s nanny and was originally written for tenor because it is comedic clown role. He got to sing the best aria in this opera, “Oblivion soave” and he sung it wonderfully. I think this is the most beautiful and best lullaby ever written.

This character has very warm loving mother and daughter type relationship with Poppea in the opera. Poppea acts more like child around her. The historical Poppea first got married at the age of 14 and Nero was her third husband. I should not speculate but I don’t think she had much of happy normal childhood, which also can be said about Nero by growing up in the cold brutality of the political turmoil in the ancient Roman royal household.

When the historical Poppea died shortly after their marriage, Nero fell into the deep mourn and gave the lavish expensive state funeral for her. I think and I would like to believe that they had much happier life together than what the ancient historical tabloid papers said.