Review: Vice chairman

Vice triumphant. Virtue punished. Wisdom dismissed out of hand. Just another day with Fox and Friends. Or maybe Monteverdi's The Coronation of Poppea at Opera Theatre.

Brenton Ryan, Emily Fons
Photo by Eric Woolsey

Originally written for the Venetian carnival season in 1643 and then largely forgotten until the late 19th century, Monteverdi's last opera is the story of how Nero divorced his wife Octavia and elevated his mistress Poppea to the throne. There are at least a dozen different editions of the opera, and in all of them Giovanni Francesco Brusenello's libretto takes considerable liberties with what we know of history.

Director Tim Albery adds a few more in the English translation he prepared for this production, which originated at Opera North in Leeds (UK) in 2014. But all of them end with Nerone and Poppea singing a rapturous love duet after dispatching their rivals through a mix of violence and banishment. For the original Venetian audience, it would have been an opportunity to relish a wicked entertainment while still reflecting on how this tale of moral corruption was so typical of those decadent Romans.

David Pittsinger
Photo by Eric Woolsey

Judging from the hairstyles and costumes, Mr. Albery has moved the action from 65 AD to the 1960s, thereby allowing a contemporary audience to view the disreputable action from a comforting (if illusory) distance. And if you can ignore the pointlessly ugly set, which appears to be a cross between a disused swimming pool and a warehouse, it's still pretty wickedly entertaining. It retains a darkly comic edge right up the final act, when Mr. Albery jumps the shark with some violence that's not in any version of the libretto, including his own.

Monteverdi's heavily ornamented music demands a lot from the singers, and certainly gets it from this excellent cast. Tenor Brenton Ryan and mezzo Emily Fons both do full justice to their characters' acrobatic vocal lines while convincingly conveying their unbridled lust and borderline mania. Bass-baritone David Pittsinger's is a vocal powerhouse as the philosopher Seneca and soprano Patricia Schuman displays impressive musical and dramatic range as Poppea's nurse Arnalta, a role often sung by a contralto or even a tenor.

Sarah Mesko, Tom Scott-Cowell
Photo by Eric Woolsey

Countertenor Tom Scott-Cowell makes an auspicious OTSL debut as Ottone, whose love for Poppea's maid Drusilla (soprano Devon Gutherie in another striking performance) dooms them both to exile (in the libretto) and death (in Mr. Albery's staging). As the guard Lucano, tenor Philippe L'Esperance has a nice star turn in the inebriated Act II singing contest with Nerone.

Soprano Sydney Baedke makes her dual roles of the goddess Fortuna and the page Valletto so clearly different that I didn't notice at first that they were being sung by the same person. There's great work here as well by soprano Jennifer Aylmer as the goddess Virtù, mezzo Michaela Wolz as the strutting Amore (a.k.a. Cupid), and mezzo Sarah Mesko as the tragically spurned Ottavia. As Seneca's three Familiari, countertenor Jacob Ingbar, tenor Joseph McBrayer, and bass Griffen Hogan Tracy shine in their complex second act trio.

Patricia Schuman, Emily Fons
Photo by Eric Woolsey

The eight-piece on-stage Baroque orchestra, including two theorbos, a lirone, and a viola da gamba, plays the score with crystalline perfection under the direction of Nichola Kok, conducting from one of the two harpsichords.

Opera Theatre's The Coronation of Poppea has one more performance on Friday, June 28th. It's sung in English with projected English text and it's on view at the Loretto-Hilton Center on the Webster University campus.