Claudio Monteverdi’s opera The Coronation of Poppea had its premiere in Venice in 1643, shortly after the city became the first place to open a public opera house: no longer would opera be the preserve of princes and their courts.
Venetian audiences liked some spice in their opera; Poppea provides it in its portrayal of a Rome riddled with sexual intrigue, corruption and violence. It’s 64 CE; Emperor Nero, no longer in love with his wife Ottavia, is in a distinctly unchaste relationship with Poppea, who likes the idea of becoming Empress.
There are cross-dressing gods and mortals, a murder plot, an enforced suicide and the tangled wires of several love affairs. It’s remarkably modern in its willingness to allow lust and selfishness to triumph over benevolence and reason, and in its confident juxtaposition of comic and serious. You could almost believe you’re seeing London in 2023.
Although Basia BiÅkowska’s set and costumes place the action in the modern era, Robin Norton-Hale’s new production for English Touring Opera doesn’t overplay contemporary resonances: the audience can draw its own conclusions. Nobody knows the make-up of Monteverdi’s original orchestra and conductor Yshani Perinpanayagm has felt free to produce her own arrangement, mostly alert to 17th-century nuances but with some modern interventions that aren’t always comfortable.
Over the next six weeks, the production travels to seven different venues scattered around the country so the set must be portable. It’s an attractive and uncluttered space but somewhat inert; occasionally Nero and Poppea seem not so much in the grip of erotic delirium as chatting politely at a cocktail party that hasn’t yet hits its stride.
Yet the atmosphere eventually builds. The opera is sung in Helen Eastman’s efficient new translation; the first word we hear is “Wow!”; later, we get “pillock”, “shag” and sundry other modernisms that raise a smile. The cast is quite large for a small company: 13 singers, some of them doubling roles. Naturally, Nero (Martha Jones, natty in a sparkly trouser suit) and Poppea (Jessica Cale, slinky and seductive, as the part demands) dominate, but the most impressive performances come from Amy J Payne’s Arnalta, a servant with ideas above her station, and from the Drusilla of Elizabeth Karani, silky-toned but with an edge of steel as she plots the murder of her rival Poppea.
Before joining ETO, Norton-Hale founded OperaUpClose, where her pub-based productions had a rude vitality that wouldn’t be out of place in Monteverdi. If on opening night, this, her first staging as ETO’s general director, sometimes felt rather out of focus, there’s enough skill in the performers and wit in the production for things to tighten up once the show gets on the road.
