Because compact discs and DVDs are of
such high and lasting quality and are
relatively inexpensive to manufacture,
the music world enjoys an embarrassment
of riches. Record companies continue
to mine the depths of recorded performances,
and now with the DVD firmly ensconced
as the medium of choice for video productions,
the market is beginning to see as big
a flood of them as we saw in the eighties
and nineties with compact discs. The
result is a seriously mixed bag where
quality is concerned, and after having
suffered through this production, I
wish that the decision-makers who let
this one out of the can had been a bit
more discerning.
Handel’s convoluted
drama about the behind-the-scenes machinations
of Agrippina, who was the wife of the
Roman Emperor Claudius, and mother of
Nero, was a tremendous success when
it first hit the Italian stages in 1709.
And as Handel operas go, this one has
some dramatic thrust to it, and some
memorable tunes, in spite of the fact
that, as usual, Handel recycled a good
bit of the music from earlier works.
In this production, roles that would
have been sung by castrati have been
replaced with their octave-down male
counterparts instead of counter-tenors,
a decision that works well, and frankly
makes this nearly unbearable production
a few grams more tolerable.
For the life of me,
I do not understand why opera companies
cast singers who are so clueless as
to baroque style in productions of baroque
operas. We have come miles in terms
of stylistic and historical performance
practice and in the ability to play
period instruments well. Why is it then
that the label executives continue to
pummel us with productions like this
that are so severely dated and just
plain poorly executed.
Let us begin with the
orchestra. OK, so the London Baroque
Players have a bit of a reputation and
some recordings to their credit. They
play here with nary an ounce of grace
and poise, honking and screeching their
way through the score with all the enthusiasm
that one might expect from a group of
moonlighters. This is just plain ugly
playing and the close microphones and
the boxy acoustic of the Rokokotheater
do not help. The sound falls dead at
the first row of seats, and it is not
enhanced at all when played through
a stereo system.
Then there is the singing.
David Kuebler sings with a throaty edge
to his tone that is maddening, and he
puts so much pressure on the voice that
there is nowhere for beauty of tone,
if he had any, to blossom. Couple that
with his forced coloratura and you get
some pretty unbearable singing. Barbara
Daniels looks regal enough as Agrippina,
but she sings Handel with a Verdi voice
that overpowers the music. Günter
von Kannen is about as kingly as a walrus
as he stumbles around the stage looking
like an aging out-of-makeup circus clown,
and singing as though he had a sweat
sock stuffed down his throat.
The only mildly saving
grace here is Janice Hall’s Poppea.
This lady can actually sing. Her tone
is lovely, she sings Handel with a clue
or two about the style and she does
not try to overpower us with sheer volume.
The supporting characters
are miscast as well. Carlos Feller and
Claudio Nicolai were already shall we
say, mature, when they appeared in this
performance. They are costumed and made
up to look even older, and then when
you have to listen to their forced,
swallowed and tension-filled tone, and
their mere approximations of the pitches,
you wonder from just which home for
retired opera singers they were bussed
in for this production.
To sum it up, this
one should have never made it out of
the filing cabinet, and were viewers
unfortunate enough to have this as their
first Baroque opera experience, the
cause would be set back a full generation.
A request to Euroarts: please don’t
do this to us again. No one wants to
waste 154 minutes of his life on such
third rate product.
Kevin Sutton
The London Baroque Players/Arnold Östman
EUROARTS
DVD 2054538 [154:00] 
