Vienna State Opera (live stream), 22/05/2021

Monteverdi : L'incoronazione di Poppea

Needcompany

Concentus Musicus Wien

Pablo Heras-Casado

Anyone who has been a regular reader of my blog will have realised by now that I'm not particularly fond of Baroque (or earlier) music.  I make a major exception for Monteverdi, and especially The Coronation of Poppea, which is as fresh and relevant today as at its creation in 1642.  There are lines in Poppea that resonate with extraordinary strength today, and there's an authenticity to this astonishing array of morally dubious characters that not even Mozart and Da Ponte achieve; this is "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous Behaving Badly" nearly 500 years on.  Plus ça change.... 

The problem with this production was not so much the cast of characters, as the cast of extras.  There is no chorus in Poppea, but director Jan Lauwers provided a Greek chorus of sorts in a couple of dozen dancers, echoing, shadowing and 'commenting' on the action and the emotions.  The stage was otherwise pretty bare, save for the floor carpeted with what looked a bit like a vast Baroque orgy, or maybe something like a Breughel - it was a little difficult to tell from the angles we were given, but there were certainly a lot of naked bodies strewn around underfoot.  All those dancers meant that there was a lot going on, at all times.  The problem with watching on a live stream is that unlike when you are present in the theatre, you don't actually get to choose what to look at, the video director does that for you.  Naturally, and quite rightly, the great majority of the attention is directed towards whoever is singing at the time, but the eye and the mind are capable of viewing and assessing a much broader field of image than the camera usually offers.  While it was possible, therefore, to get a hold of the concept at moments,  that tended to get dissipated by a change of focus outwith your control.  I'm still not sure whether I appreciated all these dancers milling around - and I still don't understand the whirling dervish-style dancer (dancers, they rotated out frequently) in the centre of stage at all times.  

The Prologue, however, made a powerful and uncomfortable impact, because the three divinities, Fortune, Virtue and Love, all came on dragging with them severely disabled 'followers', whom they casually abused all through their bitch-fest, which set the tone of callous single-mindedness in which many of the characters operate, and after that Lauwers doesn't have too try to hard to impose anything on the characters, they read quite straight-forwardly, although he allows Ottavia and Seneca to retain some dignity, where I've seen productions in which those two are no better than the rest of them.  In the end, though, it's a staging which does not leave a very strong impression.  If you abstract the dancers, it's quite plain and direct, and the dancers' raison d'être was not compellingly clear, though the impact in-house might be rather different.

The production was originally staged at the 2018 Salzburg Festival, with William Christie and Les Arts Florissants in charge of the music.  The Vienna State Opera does not have a particularly strong track record with early music - if I understood the commentary correctly, it's been nearly 50 years since Poppea was last staged there - so the musical aspect of the performance was entrusted to specialists Concentus Musicus Wien under Pablo Heras-Casado.  I have to say I thought the orchestra looked quite large, they certainly had a rich, strong, detailed sound.  

Of the original cast, only Kate Lindsey was returning to her role as Nerone, arrogant and entitled, with an edge of the wildness of a spoiled teenager, a little more fey than I'm used to seeing or hearing the role, but not afraid to let her tone turn ugly when the character is throwing a strop.  Her timbre matched very well with Slávka Zámečníková's as Poppea, and Zámečníková certainly offered a fine vocal experience, but not that deep sensuality you want from Poppea.  In her interactions with Nerone, Poppea's mode of expression is frankly erotic, and you want that frisson of reaction, of recognition of her power over Nerone.  A great Poppea can make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, Zámečníková isn't there yet.  Similarly, Christina Bock took a while to really get under Octavia's skin, but her angry duet with Ottone was suitably fierce, and the final "Addio, Roma", while not heartbreaking, was still fairly touching.

Willard White (Seneca) and Kate Lindsey (Nerone)
L'incoronazione di Poppea, Wiener Staatsoper
(© Michael Poehn, 2021)

Of the numerous secondary roles, the inextinguishable Willard White was an excellent Seneca, while I really enjoyed mezzo-soprano Isabel Signoret's bright, vital turns as both Amore and especially Valletto.  Xavier Sabata failed to endear me to Ottone - it is possible, but very difficult.  Thomas Ebenstein also took a while to warm up to Arnalta, though the last aria finally had some deliciously cynical zest to it, and Vera-Lotte Boecker was a sweet, bubbly, maybe slightly ditzy Drusilla.  Musically, on the whole, it was a fine performance, and the orchestra was outstanding.  However, it has not left a deep impression, nor was I moved by it in the ways I know can be achieved.