L’Incoronazione
di Poppea
Claudio Monteverdi
Dell’Arte Opera Ensemble
August 24, 2013 – East 13th Street Theater
Dell’Arte Opera Ensemble
August 24, 2013 – East 13th Street Theater
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| Photo Credit: Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble |
Why is Italian baroque opera
so rarely performed in NYC? We need more Monteverdi (and Vivaldi too while
we’re at it). It’s just inexplicable that such perfect, highly entertaining
gems remain so neglected. Thank goodness we have enterprising independent opera
companies like the Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble, whose performance of Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea delivered a welcome dose of baroque.
Orchestration was provided by the Sebastians, an excellent seven-piece chamber
ensemble replete with period instruments that worked great in the cozy theater
space, however such a wonderfully fiery score would only benefit from a bigger
group of instruments. We just can never get enough baroque!
Girls
who sing boys who sing girly boys
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| Photo Credit: Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble |
Lei: The singers were all
extremely young, which made their mastery of vocal technique, Italian
articulation and expressiveness all the more impressive. Their enthusiasm and
dedication in bringing to life such a rarely performed piece was touching in
itself, but I was particularly impressed by Greer Davis (soprano), a graceful and fiery Poppea; Alison Cheeseman (mezzo) a very
convincing Nero; Hans Tashjian (bass),
a deep and expressive Seneca; and Jeffrey
Mandelbaum (counter-tenor) as an Ottone of many nuances. The latter is no
novice to the baroque scene since he played Ferdinand in the Met's Enchanted Island production.
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| Photo Credit: Brian Long |
Lui: As is characteristic
of so much baroque opera, all of the principal roles occupy the higher
registers. Hans Tashjian's Seneca is the one main exception. The lower register
of his role helped to ground the piece for me. I felt a sigh of relief every
time he was on stage. I actually found myself singing along with the chorus in
the beginning of the second act when Seneca is coerced to commit suicide, thus
depriving us of his soothing low-register melodies for the remainder of the
opera. I found myself chanting along with the chorus: Non morire, Seneca, no! Once he is gone we're left with the shrill
feminine voices of the core of the cast. While I enjoy the higher registers of
the baroque aesthetic, the lower male registers end up becoming a soothing
refuge that allows me to breathe.
Irrational
tearjerker
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| Photo Credit: Brian Long |
Lei: Although I generally
appreciate baroque operas for their exhilarating, energizing and fiery effects,
I have to confess that the final duet “Pur
ti miro” between Nero and Poppea moved me to a few tears. It was completely
irrational: if we look at it from the narrative side, we are talking about the
arrogant Roman emperor Nero who is beaming after having just sent into exile
his “infrigidita ed infeconda” (frigid and barren) wife Ottavia, so
that he can marry his hot young lover Poppea – not the most moving of
situations. In perfectly baroque fashion, Nero is a castrato role, in this
production thankfully performed by a female mezzo-soprano (if you really need
to have adult male characters with frilly voices, I’d rather have women play
them, sounds less odd), so the “Pur ti
miro” aria was a lovey-dovey back and forth between a soprano and a mezzo,
again, on paper not the most romantic setting by my standards – men gotta act,
look and sound like men. Still, this aria was so overwhelmingly pure and
movingly loving that I could not hold back the tears.
Lui: For such a
hauntingly beautiful finale, the underlying moral is, in fact, rather
unsettling. I felt you tear up at my side, which led me to realize just how
emotionally involved I was in that last scene too. As an aria that I have come
to appreciate after having studied it in a masterpieces of Western music course
in college, my enjoyment of “Pur ti miro”
this time was heightened by the fact that it registered with me, that I
recognized it intellectually. However, experiencing it in the moral depravation
of its full narrative context I was strangely divided. The sheer beauty of the
music virtually sugar coats the rather shocking immorality of the story.
On
the entertainment of loose morals
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| Photo Credit: Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble |
Lei: I was impressed by
how unconventional the plot was, particularly for the period (and also for the
next couple of operatic centuries). There is no edifying moral, quite the
opposite: the overarching concept is that love (or, better, lust) is an
overwhelming force, more powerful than virtue and fortune. The opera celebrates
one of the worst tyrants in Roman history lusting over his slutty lover (Poppea
spends most of the time getting undressed and asking Nero to nickname her
breasts) and taking all sorts of unfair actions (such as sending to death his
trusted counselor Seneca) to be able to crown her as Roman empress by his side.
Throughout the opera, with a climax in the finale, this couple is celebrated as
the maximum expression of romantic love. So we can look at this opera as either
extremely cynical or revolutionarily romantic – in any event, it’s highly
entertaining and musically exciting.
Lui: It is striking that
virtually all of Poppea's scenes take place in the bedroom. We can't forget,
however, that the whole opera is framed as a story told by Amore intended to
demonstrate his superiority over the forces of Virtù and Fortuna. So, in some
way I think that Love is meant to be seen as pulling the strings. Great
entertainment, indeed, that keep me hooked all along.
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| Circa 1570, by unknown of Fointanbleu School |
