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The Coronation of Poppea. Monteverdi et al. Opera North.…

The setting for this, one of the first operas composed in 1643, originally set around the year 58 AD with detail on the life of Roman Emperor Nero, was, what appeared to be, a 1950’s mafia HQ. If this was The Godfather II, then Nero (Nerone in this opera) was Michael Corleone, and the poet and philosopher Seneca, was Councillor Tom Hagan. Ruthless, and with too much power for any one person, murder is afoot: power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. There is nothing to suggest in Godfather II, however, that Michael cheats on his wife; or indeed that Michael cheats on his wife and murders her in order to be with the mistress. There, the narrative comparison ends perhaps.

However, we do witness the speculations and interventions of the gods of Fortune, Virtue and Love. These facets of human nature were the stuff of the Godfather Trilogy. In these films, spiritual reasoning and censure came in the human form of Christian priests. The opera opens with Cupid, the god of Love, setting out to prove that in the affairs of mortals, Love is always triumphant. This near modern, 1950’s setting was extremely effective in bringing the drama closer to the contemporary audience. Anything else might have divorced the drama from familiarity. Through this setting – most of the action took place in what seemed to be a sort of warehouse – the sense of statehood that comes across through many mafia-based dramas was a strong linkage with Roman autocracy.

The music was, in its delicacy and finesse, a stark contrast to the brutality of  some of the more severe dramatic events; and this was a historically informed performance. This means that the instruments accompanying the singing were very old in design. The ensemble, which physically bookended the drama on the stage, consisted of two violins, two lute-like instruments called Theorbos (these are like multi-stringed, very large guitars), a Gamba/Lirone which is a like a cello, a harp and two harpsichords. The ensemble was led, or directed by the bodily movements of one of the harpsichordists: Laurence Cummings.

An extremely effective musical device used by Monteverdi (along with the rest of the composers of this work, for there were more than one) is a repeated vocal discordance as a form of word-painting on those words sung which express lust. The note is repeated by the singer on an important syllable of a word indicating passion of some sort and the note itself sounds out of place with the rest of the music being played. It resolves itself back into the music after word has been sung. The impression made is one of a desire bursting forth without being quenched by its objective (I expect most of us a familiar with this feeling).

Two of the cast, James Laing (Nerone) and Ottone (Christopher Ainslie), were countertenors. This voice type is that of a male tenor singing in the falsely high part of the voice. Originally, these roles would have been sung by the voice type, castrato: the voice of a man who has been castrated before puberty. For obvious reasons this is no longer done. The role of Nerone is that of a murderous psychopath, so the sweetness of the countertenor voice contrasted starkly with the character’s ambitious villainy. This contrast was extremely irksome with the result that an ironic harshness was the abiding memory of this character. James Laing’s vocal performance was immaculate and quite forceful, despite the dulcet nature of the voice. He convinced of one spoilt by power, avarice and cynicism. His love for Poppea came across as the lustful infatuation of a youth.

Sandra Piques Eddy’s Poppea convinced of dewy-eyed ambition coupled with, again, a youthful infatuation. In this amorality story – the wrong-doers succeed in achieving their goal – she was a dramatic model of manipulative conniving. Vocally she was very impressive, with a strong and well controlled velvet darkness to the voice. Seneca (James Creswell) spoke with measure vocally and dramatically of the stoicism to which he subscribed: a rich and expansive profundity was the impression. A moment of comic relief was delivered with great verve by Fiona Kimm in the role of Arnalta (nurse of Poppea). Special mention must also be made of the gods, without which this story might have made little continuous sense.