Glittery Saturated Baroque at Juilliard

Handel’s Agrippina

Juilliard School of Music

February 16, 2017

  

A sickly Claudius who just keeps refusing to die
Photo credit: Richard Termine

I never pass up an opportunity to catch some staged fiery baroque opera. Agrippina, Handel’s semi-serious farce on the slow setting of the sun on the emperor Claudius’s reign, is one of those oddities that you just never know what to do with. It presents a slew of emotionally gripping serious musical moments which are then juxtaposed to many of the classic opera buffa tropes, some of which will make their way into Beaumarchais’ Figaro trilogy and from there into Mozart and Da Ponte’s Nozze di Figaro.

Whereas Agrippina reigns supreme
Photo credit: Hiroyuki Ito

Yet, Juilliard’s production of Agrippina was a beautifully crafted and richly detailed little package delivered with explosive flair. Which should come as no surprise since the show was directed by Heartbeat Opera’s Louisa Proske, who has been rapidly building a solid track record of detail-oriented, thoughtful and irreverent productions. The opera was staged in the Wilson Theater, one of the small black box venues buried deep in the labyrinthine studio space of the Juilliard School. The audience sat around a small sunken set covered in overlapping red-hued oriental rugs and the orchestra played from a platform above the rear of the “stage.” This setting provided a highly intimate experience with excellent acoustics, where the few lucky spectators could really focus on the action and the several show-stopping arias that are really the best part of this opera.

The whole cast was impressive for being so young in terms of their ability to nail this virtuosic baroque material with almost flawless Italian diction. They all handled the highly melismatic coloratura of the score with poise and skill and none of them were breathless in their pursuit of the period orchestra under the direction of Jeffrey Grossman, which sounded great yet not as muscular as my favorite renditions of Handel’s score.

Poppea (left) despairs before the Empress Agrippina
Photo credit: Hiroyuki Ito

Particularly impressive highlights were soprano Samantha Hankey (as Agrippina) and the countertenor Jakub Jozef Orlinski (as Ottone). Ms. Hankey reigned over the entire production grounding it in some semblance of seriousness. She embodied a fiercely scheming, power-hungry woman who is unstoppable in her aspiration of situating her son Nerone on the throne. Vocally, she was impressive, particularly in Pensieri, voi mi tormentate. Mr. Orlinski was particularly expressive and beautifully musical, all while displaying a kinetic stage presence. At one point he literally did three back flips consecutively in place that emphasized his exuberant joy when he realizes Poppea does return his love. I guess that when you have a breakdancing countertenor on hand, you have make the most of it.

Roman regalia meets baroque pomp meets steampunk strange
Photo credit: Hiroyuki Ito

The cast sported mostly awe-inspiring, eccentric costumes, sort of a cross between ancient Roman regalia and high baroque swank, with some extra glitter for good measure. Goth and steampunk elements were also slipped in under the radar adding an odd note to the mix. Also, while I get the importance of the many sexual tensions peppered through the plot, perhaps a giant hand-shaped sex toy used by Poppea’s suitors to express their arousal was probably a tad too much. On the other hand, Nerone crawling constantly out from behind his mother between her legs made more sense as it was semi-sexual but also emphasized his forever childishness which worked with plot and character.

All hail the Caesar!
Photo credit: Voce di Meche

And so yes, Handel’s Agrippina is a farce masquerading as semi-serious opera. With its tidy conclusion, it is a comedy of sorts. Some have even called it an antiheroic satirical comedy for its reported commentary on court intrigues of the time, most of which is lost on us now, as is the goofy way that certain moments of operas like this one inevitably play out. While so much of the music is so visceral, so grave and so serious, many story elements and several plot points don’t really rise to the gravitas of the occasion to match.

Agrippina (right) deploys her powers
Photo credit: Hiroyuki Ito

The story hinges on a series of lies, with intersecting plots carried out secretly. Everybody is tricking everybody else at one point. Much like the count in Le nozze di Figaro, the emperor Claudius has designs to cheat on his wife Agrippina with the loveliest lady-in-waiting, Poppea, who is in turn desired by both Ottone and Nerone. In order to get the emperor to regain his focus, Poppea, Agrippina and just about everybody else all choreograph their own overlapping plots and schemes to achieve their various desired outcomes. The shakedown and its accompanying recognition scene only come late and it culminates in a happy ending with divine reconciliation piled on heavy.

All is well that ends well, except for the fact that Louisa Proske and her team decided to saturate the scene with a quick final flash of blood red light once Nerone grabs the scepter of power in the end, foreboding of what’s to come under the emperor’s dangerously childish rule. And perhaps that was the moment where the political satire made itself felt for audiences today – an extra flourish added by the production team that portends terrible things when the emperor is little more than a man-child.

– Lei & Lui

Court intrigue is the order of the day
Photo credit: Hiroyuki Ito

A Fierce Baroque Pasticcio

Opera Feroce’s Arminio in Armenia

Zion German Evangelical Lutheran Church (Brooklyn Heights)

January 10, 2014

Opera seria in two acts

Music by Nicola Porpora (Germanico in Germania, Carlo il Calvo, Semiramide Riconosciuta, Agrippina)

Libretto by A. Sconosciuto

While I was having breakfast last Friday morning, social media told me that, in case I was in the mood for baroque, Vertical Player Repertory recommended Opera Feroce’s Arminio in Armenia, playing that same evening in a Brooklyn Heights church. Of course I am always in the mood for baroque, especially if performed by a company named Opera Feroce - “Fierce Opera” or, as they put it on their website, “opera that bites.” The advertisement had little yet intriguing information on the show, stating that it had been created “by cross-pollinating an original plot and a lot of great music by Nicola Porpora” and involved “Shipwreck! Sorcery! Swordfights! And Turkeys!” Also, tickets were “$20 at the door (with no one turned away).” This was more than enough to lure us to the Zion German Evangelical Lutheran Church, where we were rewarded with a most exhilarating and unique operatic experience.

Enticing flier for the cryptic event

Arminio in Armenia is a fun though seriously well-structured experiment that manages to repurpose delightful baroque arias in an approachable homage to the world of Italian opera seria. The piece is a baroque pastiche that rearranges arias from several of Nicola Porpora’s little-known operas and cantatas to fit an intricate plot where the fearless crusader Arminio is sent by the Pope to convert the Armenians to Catholicism, but ends up shipwrecked in Massachusetts, where he decides to convert the puritanical Pilgrims of the New World instead (!). Arminio’s adventures lead him to close encounters with Norberto, the uptight governor of Massachusetts, his twin peasant brother Adalberto, the latter’s love interest Clorofilla, the sorceress Tusnelda and the pilgrim maiden Genovinda.

Photo credit: Opera Feroce

The libretto is a combination of (mostly) original Italian arias and English recitatif. While on paper it sounds odd, it actually worked perfectly, playfully making the pasticcio feature crystal clear. I have to say that I liked this approach better than the Met’s Enchanted Island that kept the original music but re-wrote all the plundered arias in English. The beauty of the original Italian baroque arias is entirely lost if one slaps some English singing on them.

Opera Feroce admirably seems to have respected the integrity of the original Italian arias throughout, however, with one perhaps glaring and hilarious exception. In one of his stand out moments at the end of Act I, the quixotic governor belts out his mission as leader of his motley crew of Protestant refugees: “Miseri! I Pellegrini cercando la Terra Nuova / e la libertà dal Vaticano, da un barbaro / che mai non dimostrò pietà, che vuol / che i Pellegrini siano soggetti del Papa.”* For some reason, I just can’t imagine how such sentiments, which Norberto delivers in the pose of a rock-n-roll diva, could have fit anywhere into Porpora’s early eighteenth-century body of work.

Photo credit: Opera Feroce

Not only does this group have a sense of humor, but they also have vision. The first act in particular was brilliantly constructed with meticulous care placed on the layering of multiple subplots. After an action packed opening that features a storm at sea and a shipwreck, the cast of characters is introduced through a series of scenes that include more than one case of mistaken identities, intersecting triangles of amorous intrigue, magic spells and heightened religious and ideological tensions. The second act does not quite match the first in terms of care in composition and it seems to rush all too headlong toward a clean conclusion. While it is no less enjoyable, the payoff could be greater if they cultivated more of the narrative seeds planted in Act I, in which so many exciting characters came to life.

Although the show was advertised as a “re-premiere” concert (the piece was first performed in June 2012), it was actually a highly entertaining semi-staged performance, with singers jumping in and out of simple costumes, really acting and using props that ranged from turkey legs to magic wands. The three singers were all on double duty, each performing two very different characters. Mezzo-soprano Hayden DeWitt played the brave crusader Arminio and the pious pilgrim maiden Genovinda. Soprano Beth Anne Hatton was both the fierce witch Tusnelda and the Zerlina-like country girl Clorofilla. But it was Alan Dornak who showcased the widest range, switching back and forth from countertenor to baritone as Norberto and Adalberto, respectively. While all three were evidently having a lot of fun with the piece and had hilarious comic acting moments, they were quite serious about their singing, with excellent Italian articulation and great baroque musicality.

Beth Anne Hatton

Alan Dornak

Hayden DeWitt

The energy, passion and unassuming talent of these singers and the five-piece ensemble (violins, harpsichord, viola da gamba, traverso) were refreshing and left us wanting for more. The program mentions that sometime later this year we will have the pleasure of a fully staged costumed performance of this same piece. We will be sure to check out how Opera Feroce manages to improve this great material. Meanwhile, we’ll look forward to their next show, Magdalene’s Dilemma, an oratorio/mystery play with music by Giovanni Bonconcini – on February 6, as part of the Midtown Concert Series of the Gotham Early Music Scene.

- Lei & Lui

* “Miserable ones! The Pilgrims came in search / of the New world and freedom from the / Vatican and from a barbarian who never / showed any mercy, who wanted them to be / subjects of the Pope.”