Word: poppea
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Granted it's not on the First Night's curriculum, but Claudio Monteverdi's L'Incoronzione di Poppea may still be one hell of a cultural experience. Forego a night at the Grille and hustle over to the Agassiz for the Harvard-Radcliffe Early Music Society and the Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra's presention of Monteverdi's final opera 8 p.m., Agassiz Theater, Radcliffe Yard. Tickets...
...every nuance of archaic Mandarin. Sills resolved to take a cue from what she witnessed. The idea was reinforced when the Canadian Opera in Toronto pioneered the use of English captions in its productions of Richard Strauss's Elektra and Claudio Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea...
...Poppea, of course, was performed on original instruments, as were the week's other concerts, which included "A Venetian Festival" presented by the excellent Boston Camerata. But producing a Baroque opera is more complicated than using the right instruments. One must also decide how many of them there are to be, and which; in those days, orchestration was rarely indicated. The accepted practice is to accompany the singer with a small ensemble called the continuo, which usually consists of a harpsichord and low strings. Other parts are added occasionally to provide color or a ceremonial touch...
...Poppea, Music Director Martin Pearlman told his singers to think of the opera as a play before they learned the notes, to put across the long stretches of parlando, or singing speech. His advice paid off, for the performance had an unselfconscious ease about it that helped to eliminate any difficulties the audience might have had with the style, dry by conventional standards but supple and expressive. Especially impressive was the Nero of Susan Larson, taking a part originally written for a male soprano; the Arnalta of Tenor Karl Dan Sorensen, playing a nursemaid in another of the opera...
Stage Director Jack Eddleman's predilection for repeating certain stage pictures-such as lovers lying head to toe -was ultimately predictable. But Eddie-man was right in pointing up some of the decadence of Nero's reign: although the opera ends with the marriage of Nero and Poppea, set to one of the most beautiful love duets in operatic literature, Nero was, historically, not a man to be trusted. He later kicked the pregnant Poppea to death, and once married a boy-but only after he ordered the youth to be castrated...