Other Links

Editorial Board

Google Site Search

SEEN AND HEARD  OPERA REVIEW
 

Monteverdi, The Coronation of Poppea: (new production) Soloists, continuo and musicians of English National Opera, conducted from the harpsichord by Laurence Cummings, Chen Shi-Zheng (director), Walt Spangler (set designer), Elizabeth Caitlin Ward (costumes), Mimi Jordan Sherin (lighting designer), London Coliseum. 18.10.2007 (JPr)
 

Anna Grevelius - Nerone

Monteverdi's importance in the history of Renaissance music is equivalent to that of  Shakespeare's on literature. He transformed every genre in which he worked by constructive use of available styles rather than by revolutionary means. His madrigals cover a period of 40 years and introduced instrumental accompaniment and chromatic modulations, so that the dramatic nature of his music became the forerunner of the solo cantata and operatic recitative. The sacred music involved everything from traditional elaborate polyphony to an advanced style where elements from  the secular madrigals and operas lend colour and drama to the text, as in the famous 1610 Vespers. The operas embellish  Florentine melodramas and monody to provide a drama with words underwritten by the music.

They are the first music dramas with leitmotif elements and characters who are recognisable as real human beings rather than as the symbolic form of mythological creatures. Much of the text is scored in recitative-musical speech by means of virtuoso vocal writing and there is rarely any repetition or ‘arias’ as we now know them. Monteverdi often makes the music match the words so that if thoughts are turning to heaven then the musical line ascends: when it turns to passion you hear a musical heartbeat. This genius for melody and harmony makes the music accessible and even the text of something like  The Coronation of Poppea, one of three operas composed in the final years of a remarkably long life, can have much to say about today’s world dealing as it does with vanity, greed and ambition.

The music is so subtle that even today we can be made to  wonder how  people like Poppea and Nerone (Nero) can be celebrated with a ravishing duet and a celebratory happy ending. A certain irony is being expressed here because we know - and Monteverdi and his audience certainly did – what became of the real Nero as well as  how he had a hand (or rather a foot – she was kicked in the stomach) in the death of his pregnant Poppea only three years after their marriage. As opera moved from the ducal palaces to public theatres in the 1640s, so Monteverdi’s patrons in Venice in 1643 knew they were watching just a flashback of times gone by where Virtue did not always win out and Fortune and Love were fickle (these three allegorical characters inhabit the Prologue.) They understood the relevance of the drama's lack of moral compass and political ambivalence to the independent Carnival-engorged Venetian republic standing proud between the Italians courts and the pope in Rome. In the opera the ‘good’ (such as they are) are sent into exile or commit suicide, while the ‘bad’ are victorious.

Kate Royal - Poppea

The early music specialist Laurence Cummings conducted a small period band from the harpsichord  and has commented on the authenticity of the opera, the performing version used and the orchestra as follows: ‘Much ink has been spilt on the subject of how much of the opera is actually by Monteverdi. In fact, that issue doesn't bother me. We spend so much of our time as historical performance specialists trying to get as close to the original text and the composer's intentions as we possibly can,  that it's quite liberating to feel that we're playing a work that's by many hands. I like to think of it as being similar to how painters had a whole workshop of apprentices helping out. It frees you up to take a few liberties where you might not normally be able to. For instance, I've added trumpets, which aren't in the original score, to augment the coronation. I'm almost entirely convinced that a lot of the ritornelli are not written by Monteverdi, because there are two versions of the manuscript, one from Venice and one from Naples. In some ways Venice is closer, because that's where it was first performed, but there are lots of mistakes. The Naples score was at more of a distance, and it has totally different violin parts. What's clear is that the bass line was written down and then the other parts were added on top. So I've amplified it by giving it a five-part texture, which all the string parts in Orfeo and The Return of Ulysses have.

'It serves us very well because the Coliseum is a large place to fill. Therefore we've chosen to use eight violins, six violas and two cellos. It's not a big orchestra, but it's bigger than it might be. I've added the trumpets because the music for the coronation is redolent of trumpets in any case – I think that the original probably meant to indicate violins imitating trumpets – so I thought, why not have the real thing? Once you've realised that the (original) two violin parts aren't by Monteverdi anyway, it frees you up to make this kind of small liberty. The audience is waiting a long time for the coronation to happen – they sit through the whole opera before it happens, and it's actually quite a quick scene. So I think it really needs to burst through and make a huge impact.'

This small orchestra made a surprisingly large sound but never swamped the singers so that the vocal line was always supported – as it should be – by the music and came through with absolute clarity making the ENO’s surtitles for operas in English extremely redundant.

The Orange Blossom Dance Company
 

One would have thought English National Opera the ideal place to update this work and bring the production into the twenty-first century as a mirror to reflect vaulting ambition and triumph of evil over good as it exists in the world today. Unfortunately,  director Chen Shi-Zheng gave us a fairly vacuous fashion show concept with colourful couture (by Elizabeth Caitlin Ward) for the women (and the travesti role men) with a concomitant video display on the back wall. This might have reflected the commentary on the ‘vainglorious’ in Monteverdi’s opera but it did little else for me. The men were in  urban street gear or suits.

Walt Spangler’s set design gave us a basically bare stage apart from stage right the prow of a yacht which doubled as a gang plank in Part II. We were apparently at the bottom of the sea. Poppea (or rather her ‘flying double’) goes ‘swimming’ with snorkel and flippers and a fetching bikini. Ottavia is pushed around the stage on what could be an inflated sea anemone and Seneca commits suicide among cut-out kelp fronds. Cue appropriate undersea flora and fauna displayed on video in black and white!

Saying that Ottavia is ‘pushed around’ brings me to Shi-Zheng’s use of dancers from the Indonesia-based Orange Blossom Dance Company whose role (apart from moving pieces of the set) involved representing catwalk models or flunkies as well as  traditional (?) dance movements. More often than not -they were a distraction to the singing in Part I, most notably while they gyrated during the closing Nerone/Lucano (Nicholas Watts) duet. The production was much better when the dancers were absent for much of the second half.

Fortune (in purple plastic), Virtue (in green) and Love (in red) opened the proceedings and gave warning of what was to follow (in more ways than one). They were respectively Katherine Manley (the least comfortable with the style), Jane Harrington and Sophie Bevan. Throughout the evening after understandable first night nerves, all the voices settled down and sounded well-rehearsed and all the minor roles  were particularly well cast.

Lucy Crowe’s dizzy blonde, slightly unfairly treated Drusilla was a delight making all her words count with an easy pure soprano.  Ottavia, the vengeance seeking spurned wife of Nerone, was sung with a well-tuned sense of drama by Doreen Curran. In among so many young promising singers Robert Lloyd as Seneca brought a touch of the ‘old school’ through his pointed enunciation of the text and a resonant bass that reverberated around the Coliseum.

I enjoyed Christopher Gillett in the ‘travesti’ role of Arnalta, Poppea’s silly old nurse. The opera provides him (her?) with many wonderfully comic moments and gave a light touch to the proceedings again in Part II. Her pompous monologue about wanting to be reborn a Lady (instead of a servant) includes one of the more intriguing rhymes in Christopher Cowell’s occasionally anachronistic translation -  ‘hoi polloi’ and ‘hey, oy’.

Most important of course is the triumvirate (Ottone, Poppea and Nerone) at the centre of this operatic triangle of love, ambition and power. Tim Mead sang Ottone with a countertenor tone that was not too pleasant on the ear at first but tuned up by the time he was centre-stage in Part II : then he sounded his most eloquent and at ease. Unfortunately, his character never ventured further than a love-sick puppy who is spurned by his amorata (Poppea) and is urged to attempt to kill her.

Poppea is all for the status that being empress will give her and if Monteverdi has any sympathy for her, it does not show. She is a soul driven by her ambition to be the most powerful women in the land and uses all her ‘charms’ to get what she wants from Nerone. Kate Royal has  the visible charms needed and an expressive sultry soprano voice that made me think of  the Carmen to which she will undoubtedly bring her qualities  sometime.

If there was any doubt in this Nerone’s mind, it could only have been how long it would take to win over Poppea. Anna Grevelius seems an accomplished dramatic singer who brought home the qualities of a lover well enough with some beautiful soft top notes but with little of the despot wielding  power with ruthless abandon. I believe the role was originally intended for a high male voice but exponents are rare these days. With two female voices,  it does unbalance  the moments between her Nerone and Poppea, as well as Seneca just a bit.  Here, Nerone was arrogant and Poppea beautiful and scheming and that was the extent of their characters who failed to complete any ‘journey’ during the opera beginning the evening as they exactly as they ended it. Perhaps that was Monteverdi’s fault – perhaps Shi-Zheng’s?

A final tableau with the dancers as silver dragonflies - some suspended above the stage -  provided a sublime conclusion to the evening though what it  had to do with the ‘coronation’ or the original undersea world concept, I couldn't imagine. Perhaps that thought sums up a harmless – if rather too long - evening with some beautiful music and singing.

Jim Pritchard

Pictures © Catherine Ashmore / English National Opera
 

 

Back to Top                          Cumulative Index Page