Claudio Monteverdi
L’incoronazione di Poppea
Alice Coote, Danielle de Niese, et al
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
Emmanuelle Haïm, conductor
Decca
This DVD of Monteverdi’s 1642 opera, L’incoronazione di Poppea, was made at the 2008 Glyndebourne Festival. Monteverdi expert Emmanuelle Haïm leads the
less-than-twenty person Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment from the
harpsichord in a historically informed performance. All of the roles are taken
by the intended vocal ranges: Nero is a mezzo-soprano, Ottone is a countertenor
and both nurses are men in drag — Poppea’s nurse Arnalta a tenor and Ottavia’s
a countertenor. A newcomer to this opera may find this strange, but it’s what
Monteverdi scored for, and theatrically it’s just the ticket. Haïm’s leadership
is alert, nuanced and allows for embellishments and ornaments, all of them apt
and none of them intrusive.
And the singing is ideal. Stunning soprano Danielle de Niese’s slightly-too-Valley
Girl-pouty Poppea is a clever, bitchy sexpot, as demanding as she is alluring,
and Alice Coote’s Nero, with a timbre very different from de Niese’s, matches her mood for mood. These nasty, pitiless characters sing and interact
naturally; when they sing together you can tell what else they have in common.
Countertenor Iestyn Davies cowers and pines tellingly as the wimp Ottone;
Tamara Mumford’s Ottavia is suitably grave and spiteful; and bass Paolo
Battaglia sings Seneca’s wise words with solemnity—and remains the
lecturing bore Monteverdi wants him to be (he’s the only moral character in the
show and is made to commit suicide at Nero’s command). Dominique Visse as
Ottavia’s Nutrice is gloriously prim and fussy (looking much like anyone’s
maiden aunt) and Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke, a big man in Milton Berle-like
drag as Arnalta, camps it up with glee. All of the other soloists are stylish
and more than accomplished.
Ah, but for the core point of the opera, what one hears is not quite what one sees.
There are very few anachronisms in this modern-day Poppea but there is one utter misinterpretation. Director Robert Carsen’s decision to stage the prologue with Fortune dressed to the nines and Virtue in nun’s habit bickering over a seat in the theater’s front row, with Cupid interjecting and telling them that they have no chance at winning anyway, is charming. (Constance Hoffman costumes the women in nice
dresses, the men in business suits.) Having Cupid on stage during many scenes also works, since the opera’s punchline is that Love (or Lust) will win over everything else. But here comes the contradiction: as staged, Nero loses interest in and patience for Poppea as the opera progresses (we all know that he stomped her to death a few months after their wedding, but Monteverdi’s opera has nothing to do with that) and he comes dangerously close to belting her as he promises her that she will be empress. They sing their glorious final duet physically apart (looking almost bored) in direct contrast to both text and music, and Nero leaves Poppea alone on stage at the curtain. Earlier on,
Nero has Lucano drowned in a bathtub after their clearly sexual, almost-love duet celebrating the death of Seneca; and so we know that Nero must kill everything he loves. But Monteverdi was on the side of Amor, and Carsen contradicts this, quite wrongheadedly.
Michael Levine’s minimalist sets consist of nothing more than a bed, a bathtub, a few props and a red curtain (used in many different ways, including as a sandy
beach). Sound and picture are stupendous and François Roussillon’s direction
for television is wise and clever. This really should be seen and heard—you
certainly won’t find any fault with it musically and Carsen’s misreading hardly spoils it. But it makes you wonder how much leeway directors ought to take.
