Monteverdi L'incoronazione di Poppea
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Claudio Monteverdi
Genre:
Opera
Label: Nuova Era
Magazine Review Date: 4/1991
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 234
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: 67379
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| (L')Incoronazione di Poppea, '(The) Coronation of Poppea' |
Claudio Monteverdi, Composer
Adelisa Tabiadon, Ottavia, Soprano Alberto Zedda, Conductor Anna Caterina Antonacci, Love, Soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci, Pallas, Soprano Armando Caforio, Seneca, Bass Barbara Lavarian, Valletto, Soprano Bassano Pro Arte Orchestra Carmen Gonzales, Arnalta, Contralto (Female alto) Claudio Monteverdi, Composer Cristina Jannicola, Damigella, Soprano Daniella Dessì, Poppea, Soprano Giuseppe de Matteis, Lictor, Bass Josella Ligi, Nerone, Soprano Kumiko Yoshi, Fortune Maria Angeles Peters, Drusilla, Soprano Michele Farruggia, Lucano, Tenor Nicoletta Cliento, Nurse Pietro Spagnoli, Mercury, Baritone Susanna Anselmi, Ottone, Mezzo soprano Vittoria Mazzoni, Virtue Vittoria Mazzoni, Venus |
Author: Iain Fenlon
Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea, his last and, many would argue, finest opera, is a constant source of both fascination and difficulty. At the level of meaning the story itself is strange enough; here it is evil that seems to triumph rather than good, as the adulterous love of Poppea and Nerone causes the death of the philosopher Seneca, and then the exile of Nerone's wife Ottavia, so leaving Nerone free to proclaim Poppea as his new empress. Then there are the difficulties of the score (and the ten or so different versions of the libretto), difficulties which make any production that lays claim to historical authenticity an almost hopeless enterprise. The two manuscripts of the work that have survived, one in Naples the other in Venice, not only differ from each other; they also contain emendations and additions by other composers, including the famous final duet which, as is now generally agreed, is not by Monteverdi at all. In addition, since both manuscript scores are often quite unspecific over matters of detail, and are sometimes in conflict with each other, there is a series of difficult decisions for performers to make about which instruments and voices should be used.
The lure of these interpretational problems has become intense over the last year with the appearance of no fewer than three new complete recordings of Poppea. The first to be issued, based on the Opera London production given in Christ Church, Spitalfields, in 1988 conducted by Richard Hickox (Virgin Classics), takes the surely correct view that the score is not merely an abbreviated one which consequently needs instrumental lines to be added, but rather is complete in itself and contains all the detail necessary for performance. Hickox's small orchestra is made up of a central group of three solo stringed instruments, sparingly supported by a judiciously-chosen variety of continuo instruments. This seems right on historical grounds; apart from any other considerations, it is known from contemporary accounts that Venetian theatres usually employed ten instrumentalists: two violins, two viole da braccia, one violone, two theorbos and a pair of harpsichords. Of all the records currently available, it is only this one that allows us to recapture the rather spare sound which, it is becoming increasingly clear, was the norm (largely for economic reasons) in seventeeth-century Venetian public opera houses.
In this respect alone, the contrast with the new recording directed by Alberto Zedda could hardly be greater. This was made during a live performance given at Martina Franca in the summer of 1988, which is why there are so many strange and unwelcome extraneous noises; from the stage, the audience and even (most noticeably in Act 1 scene 6) from the cues being called out to the singers. For this occasion a new edition was made, based not upon one or other of the two surviving manuscripts but rather upon a conflation of them both. The result, offered as ''a truly complete version'', contains all the surviving material of the Poppea manuscripts, including the dozen or so passages in the Naples manuscript which almost certainly do not have anything to do with Monteverdi's original conception.
Four of these later additions (none more than a few pages in score) contain solo vocal writing with instrumental accompaniment; Zedda has taken this as ''unquestionable proof'' that added instrumental elaboration is necessary throughout the opera, and has consequently added a profusion of obbligato parts, written in a variety of pseudo-seventeenth-century idioms of varying degrees of plausibility. These, for which there is not a scrap of original notation, are performed by a battery of modern instruments including three flutes, three oboes, one bassoon, two trumpets and three trombones. The effect of all this is to fundamentally disturb the composer's delicately-calculated relationship between vocal writing and ancillary instrumental support which should only occasionally become prominent in ritornellos and sinfonias. In addition to added melodic lines, the score has also been elaborately 'orchestrated', with frequent changes of instrumental colour (designed to underpin significant moments in music and action) that have more to do with nineteenth-century practices than with what we know of the seventeenth. It seems that little has changed since Leppard's radical re-writing of this and other early Venetian operas for the Glyndbourne productions of some 20 years ago.
It is interesting to compare Zedda's approach to this basic question of realizing the score with that of Rene Jacobs, whose new recording has also just been released. Unlike Zedda, whose career has been substantially devoted to performing nineteenth-century Italian opera, Jacobs has for long specialized in baroque music and has previously been involved with a number of recordings of other early Venetian operas. It is this experience which leads him to believe that while the original manuscripts contain the 'essential' features of the work, they must be augmented in two ways; firstly, by extending the use of the central string ensemble beyond ritornellos and sinfonias, and secondly by adding three-part melodic elaborations (accompagnati) at strategic moments. In practice this places his version somewhere between the absolute purity of the Hickox (where the vocal lines are supported throughout only by a basso continuo) and Zedda's colourful fantasia upon the composer's original score.
Perhaps Zedda's over-creative approach would not matter that much if the vocal performances on this recording were convincing. But here there is a real difficulty which grows out of his decision to cast the work with singers whose careers have been largely devoted to nineteenth-century repertories. Among the principals the best singing by far comes from Daniela Dessi, whose portrayal of Poppea is wide-ranging, dramatic and powerful, and from Armando Caforio's Seneca, which exudes mellifluous authority, especially in its middle range. But among the rest there is widespread misunderstanding of the fundamentals of Monteverdi's vocal style and its expressive means. The problem becomes most severe in that flexible half arioso/half recitative writing which is the hallmark of Poppea, and is the principal means through which Monteverdi explores the shifting emotional states of his characters. Powerful operatic voices of the kind used here are simply inappropriate. Over this matter too, the Jacobs version is greatly to be preferred. Right from the start Danielle Borst's Poppea is richly seductive, and the part of Nerone is given a wildly impetuous reading by Guillemette Laurens; by the fifth scene of Act 1 these principal characters have been graphically delineated, the oppositions set up and the seeds of tragedy sown in a highly convincing way.
Yet while there is no doubt that the Jacobs recording is to be preferred to Zedda's at almost every juncture, it too has its problems. Quite apart from the question of added instrumental parts, there is some poor casting, notably of Ottone, sung by the countertenor Axel Kohler who produces an almost disengaged account of what is, after all, the most difficult and crucial role in the opera. And, above all, there are Jacobs's impossibly slow speeds to contend with, a difficulty we are aware of right from the opening sinfonia of Act 1. In the end, while both Jacobs and Hickox offer valuable insights into the score of Poppea, I still find myself returning to Nikolaus Harnoncourt's 1974 Teldec/Warner Classics recording (reissued on CD in 1986) which, for all its idiosyncracies, still has much to say. Part of its perennial appeal is to do with the strong cast which has never been surpassed (I treasure it above all for Cathy Berberian's reading of Ottavia), and with Harnoncourt's well-paced and intensely musical direction. There is still plenty of room for another view of the opera, one which would unite the benefits of recent scholarship with a deep and detailed understanding of its music.'
The lure of these interpretational problems has become intense over the last year with the appearance of no fewer than three new complete recordings of Poppea. The first to be issued, based on the Opera London production given in Christ Church, Spitalfields, in 1988 conducted by Richard Hickox (Virgin Classics), takes the surely correct view that the score is not merely an abbreviated one which consequently needs instrumental lines to be added, but rather is complete in itself and contains all the detail necessary for performance. Hickox's small orchestra is made up of a central group of three solo stringed instruments, sparingly supported by a judiciously-chosen variety of continuo instruments. This seems right on historical grounds; apart from any other considerations, it is known from contemporary accounts that Venetian theatres usually employed ten instrumentalists: two violins, two viole da braccia, one violone, two theorbos and a pair of harpsichords. Of all the records currently available, it is only this one that allows us to recapture the rather spare sound which, it is becoming increasingly clear, was the norm (largely for economic reasons) in seventeeth-century Venetian public opera houses.
In this respect alone, the contrast with the new recording directed by Alberto Zedda could hardly be greater. This was made during a live performance given at Martina Franca in the summer of 1988, which is why there are so many strange and unwelcome extraneous noises; from the stage, the audience and even (most noticeably in Act 1 scene 6) from the cues being called out to the singers. For this occasion a new edition was made, based not upon one or other of the two surviving manuscripts but rather upon a conflation of them both. The result, offered as ''a truly complete version'', contains all the surviving material of the Poppea manuscripts, including the dozen or so passages in the Naples manuscript which almost certainly do not have anything to do with Monteverdi's original conception.
Four of these later additions (none more than a few pages in score) contain solo vocal writing with instrumental accompaniment; Zedda has taken this as ''unquestionable proof'' that added instrumental elaboration is necessary throughout the opera, and has consequently added a profusion of obbligato parts, written in a variety of pseudo-seventeenth-century idioms of varying degrees of plausibility. These, for which there is not a scrap of original notation, are performed by a battery of modern instruments including three flutes, three oboes, one bassoon, two trumpets and three trombones. The effect of all this is to fundamentally disturb the composer's delicately-calculated relationship between vocal writing and ancillary instrumental support which should only occasionally become prominent in ritornellos and sinfonias. In addition to added melodic lines, the score has also been elaborately 'orchestrated', with frequent changes of instrumental colour (designed to underpin significant moments in music and action) that have more to do with nineteenth-century practices than with what we know of the seventeenth. It seems that little has changed since Leppard's radical re-writing of this and other early Venetian operas for the Glyndbourne productions of some 20 years ago.
It is interesting to compare Zedda's approach to this basic question of realizing the score with that of Rene Jacobs, whose new recording has also just been released. Unlike Zedda, whose career has been substantially devoted to performing nineteenth-century Italian opera, Jacobs has for long specialized in baroque music and has previously been involved with a number of recordings of other early Venetian operas. It is this experience which leads him to believe that while the original manuscripts contain the 'essential' features of the work, they must be augmented in two ways; firstly, by extending the use of the central string ensemble beyond ritornellos and sinfonias, and secondly by adding three-part melodic elaborations (accompagnati) at strategic moments. In practice this places his version somewhere between the absolute purity of the Hickox (where the vocal lines are supported throughout only by a basso continuo) and Zedda's colourful fantasia upon the composer's original score.
Perhaps Zedda's over-creative approach would not matter that much if the vocal performances on this recording were convincing. But here there is a real difficulty which grows out of his decision to cast the work with singers whose careers have been largely devoted to nineteenth-century repertories. Among the principals the best singing by far comes from Daniela Dessi, whose portrayal of Poppea is wide-ranging, dramatic and powerful, and from Armando Caforio's Seneca, which exudes mellifluous authority, especially in its middle range. But among the rest there is widespread misunderstanding of the fundamentals of Monteverdi's vocal style and its expressive means. The problem becomes most severe in that flexible half arioso/half recitative writing which is the hallmark of Poppea, and is the principal means through which Monteverdi explores the shifting emotional states of his characters. Powerful operatic voices of the kind used here are simply inappropriate. Over this matter too, the Jacobs version is greatly to be preferred. Right from the start Danielle Borst's Poppea is richly seductive, and the part of Nerone is given a wildly impetuous reading by Guillemette Laurens; by the fifth scene of Act 1 these principal characters have been graphically delineated, the oppositions set up and the seeds of tragedy sown in a highly convincing way.
Yet while there is no doubt that the Jacobs recording is to be preferred to Zedda's at almost every juncture, it too has its problems. Quite apart from the question of added instrumental parts, there is some poor casting, notably of Ottone, sung by the countertenor Axel Kohler who produces an almost disengaged account of what is, after all, the most difficult and crucial role in the opera. And, above all, there are Jacobs's impossibly slow speeds to contend with, a difficulty we are aware of right from the opening sinfonia of Act 1. In the end, while both Jacobs and Hickox offer valuable insights into the score of Poppea, I still find myself returning to Nikolaus Harnoncourt's 1974 Teldec/Warner Classics recording (reissued on CD in 1986) which, for all its idiosyncracies, still has much to say. Part of its perennial appeal is to do with the strong cast which has never been surpassed (I treasure it above all for Cathy Berberian's reading of Ottavia), and with Harnoncourt's well-paced and intensely musical direction. There is still plenty of room for another view of the opera, one which would unite the benefits of recent scholarship with a deep and detailed understanding of its music.'
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