by Claudio Monteverdi
Directed by Marshall Pynkoski
An Opera Atelier Production
at the Elgin Theatre
April 25, 26, 28, 29, May 1, 2, 2009

   Monteverdi’s final opera is also his best. The Corononation of Poppea (1642) was written primarily for a Venetian audience steeped in Roman history, so this one, with its focus on some of the moral corruption of ancient Rome, specifically in Nero’s era. Most of the main characters are despicable because lust often displaces love, marital infidelity is the order of the day, and ambition leads to evil machination. No wonder that the opera begins with the allegorical figure of Fortune (descended, of course, from the sky) derides Virtue as “an impoverished deity” or a goddess “without a temple or followers.” Virtue tries to fight back by claiming, “I am the true ladder by which Nature ascends to Heaven.” It is Amore (Cupid), however, who triumphs in a three-way, sung debate. But this is abstract stuff that hardly matches the drama of triangular adultery—in which there are two triangles: Nerone, married to Ottavia, lusting after Poppea, while Ottone, Poppea’s husband, succumbs to the charms of Drusilla. Of course, it is Poppea who ultimately triumphs, being crowned Empress after Nerone banishes Ottavia, Ottone, and Drusilla. Talk about a purge! Well, it’s not ethnic cleansing, but call it or sing it as the victory of inestimable human beings. Actually, though the characters and music are never allowed to blaze the way they would in Verdi, for instance, they do make for gorgeous music, and Opera Atelier delivers the goods in a spectacular production, combining the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and Chamber Choir with beautiful trompe l’oeil decor by Gerard Gauci (though the coronation sequence is not eye-popping at all), impressive costumes by Dora Rust D’Eye, and effective lighting by Kevin Fraser. Choreographer Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg, keeping to the restrictions on dance by Monteverdi, puts her dancers into graceful positions and light semaphores with circular movements, but the Prologue, executed in silence to start and against a dark, star-lit sky, gives restraint a good name. And for his part, Marshall Pynkoski does not strain for false effects in his direction. He keeps things as simple as possible, with a clear eye on the story, and allowing the orchestra, chorus, and his singers to do Monteverdi’s bidding.  

   Carla Huhtanen (Fortune), Laura Pudwell (Virtue), and Cynthia Smithers (Amore) start the opera with their spirited argument with an exchange of insults, but the score (sung in Italian with English Surtitles, under the baton of David Fallis) is really given its full play by other characters. There is a moving Ottavia by mezzo-soprano Kimberly Barber and a superb Drusilla by Carla Huhtanen. Olivier Laquerre makes a good Ottone and Curtis Sullivan a fine Liberto. The most wonderfully human Arnalta of Laura Pudwell steals her scenes with her warm, vibrant stage personality (her fanciful idea of becoming a grand lady is hilarious), but there are striking moments in Joao Fernandes’ stoical Seneca, whose lighter notes are no match for his heavier bass but who comes into his own with Nerone, sometimes even dominating the emperor vocally. Which is not to say that the male soprano of Michael Maniaci is weak. It is just that this singer seems to do best in his scenes with Peggy Kriha Dye’s Poppea, though, as in the baroque tradition, desire often seems oblique rather than frontally carnal. Maniaci caresses a portrait of his beloved rather than her. His ultimate physical pleasure is had only when his servant Lucano (Cory Knight) masturbates him in a sexually comic arioso. However, once Ms. Dye’s Poppea and Maniaci’s Nerone reach their luminous love duet at the end of the final act, the music becomes purely gorgeous, a palpable case of transcendental sound.