Power: to achieve it, the courtesan Poppaea will stop at nothing. As Emperor Nero’s mistress, she strives to remove every obstacle standing in the way of the throne. At the cost of breaking up with her lover Otho, ordering the philosopher Seneca’s suicide, and having Empress Octavia repudiated, she achieves her goal: Poppea marries Nero. And what could have been merely a triumph of amorality becomes, through Monteverdi’s music, a hymn to all-powerful desire, an exaltation of humanity trapped in its contradictions. The master’s final opera is also the first masterpiece of its kind, its modernity undimmed despite the passage of four centuries, performed by a young ensemble led by Leonardo García-Alarcón.
Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643)
Nero, or The Coronation of Poppea, an opera in a prologue and three acts, libretto by Giovanni Francesco Busenello
Sophie Junker, soprano – Poppea
Nicolò Balducci, countertenor – Nerone
Mariana Flores, soprano – Ottavia / Virtù
Iestyn Davies, countertenor – Ottone
Alex Rosen, bass – Seneca / Console
Marcel Beekman, tenor – Arnalta / Nutrice / Famigliare I
Lucía Martín Cartón, soprano – Fortuna / Drusilla
Riccardo Romeo, tenor – Liberto / Soldier II
Julie Roset, soprano – Amore / Valetto
Laurence Kilsby, tenor – Lucano / Soldier I / Attendant II
Yannis François, baritone – Littore / Attendant III / Mercury
Cappella Mediterranea
Leonardo García Alarcón, musical director
Vincent Meyer supports Cappella Mediterranea’s artistic programming at La Cité Bleue.
With support from the National Music Center.