L’INCORONAZIONE DI POPPEA

Jacksons Lane

★★★★

“performances fit to grace any opera house”

When Emperor Nerone falls in love with the ambitious Poppea, their toxic romance becomes Rome’s ultimate power play. She’s ruthless, he’s unhinged, and together they’re unstoppable, leaving bodies and broken lives in their wake as Nerone divorces his wife Ottavia to crown his mistress empress. It’s a study in humanity’s capacity for ruthless ambition cloaked in the language of love. HGO’s superb production of Claudio Monteverdi’s masterpiece demonstrates why this company has earned back-to-back Offie Awards.

The plot unfolds like a telenovela. It’s a big mix-up involving murderous rulers, darkly comical servants and mistaken identity that wouldn’t be out of place in Shakespeare. As a matter of historical fact, Nerone murdered Poppea, rather than elevating her to Empress. Busenello’s libretto offers a rehabilitation, a ‘what-might-have-been’ where love conquers all, though at terrible cost.

Director Ashley Pearson delivers a minimalist production that trusts Monteverdi’s music and Giovanni Busenello’s cynical libretto to carry the drama. With little stage furniture and Sorcha Corcoran’s stripped-back set design, the focus remains laser-sharp on the performances. Sofia Alexiadou’s lighting design works to magnificent effect, sculpting the space and illuminating the psychological warfare unfolding between characters. Alice Carroll’s costumes feature light touches of 1980s styling, perhaps a nod to that era’s own excesses and power plays.

Two performances transcend an already strong ensemble cast. Theano Papadaki in the title role is a revelation—a Poppea of calculated ambition matched by a beautiful voice that makes her manipulation utterly seductive. Her final coronation feels both triumphant and unsettling, exactly as it should. Equally outstanding is Jasmine Flicker as Drusilla, bringing genuine pathos to the woman caught in Ottone’s obsession with Poppea. Flicker possesses a voice of exceptional beauty and uses it with intelligence and emotional authenticity.

The eight-piece HGOAntiqua baroque ensemble under Seb Gillot’s musical direction does a fine job with Monteverdi’s score. The theorbo (played by Kristiina Watt)—like a long-stringed bass guitar—joins viola da gamba (Kate Conway), violone (Jude Chandler), and portative organ (Seb Gillot) to create an authentic sound. The original orchestration may have included more wind instruments, but the ensemble creates rich textures nonetheless. This is music from the era of Greensleeves, beautiful and tender, culminating in the sublime final duet “Pur ti miro”.

Monteverdi’s vocal casting is rather top-heavy. Only Seneca provides a bass voice, and his character dies at the end of Act One. More characters with lower ranges would have been an easy win. Perhaps this limitation is only noticeable for an audience exposed to opera’s later golden age, when it was corrected with such great aplomb. Of course, any fault here is not with this production, but with the score itself.

The supporting cast handles the opera’s complex web of betrayals with apparent ease. The working-class characters—guards, nurses, attendants—inject knowing commentary, reminding us that the powerful destroy lives with casual indifference.

HGO continues its impressive mission to give young singers essential professional experience. This production demonstrates why that matters: these are real talents at the start of promising careers, delivering performances fit to grace any opera house.