L'incoronazione di Poppea
| Work data | |
|---|---|
| Title: | The coronation of Poppea |
| Original title: | L'incoronazione di Poppea |
Title page of the libretto, Venice 1656 |
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| Original language: | Italian |
| Music: | Claudio Monteverdi |
| Libretto : | Giovanni Francesco Busenello |
| Premiere: | Carnival season 1642/1643 |
| Place of premiere: | Venice , Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo |
| Playing time: | approx. 2 ½ hours |
| Place and time of the action: | Rome at the time of Nero , AD 62 |
| people | |
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prolog action
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L'incoronazione di Poppea (Eng: "The Coronation of Poppea", SV 308 ), the last opera by Claudio Monteverdi , is one of the composer's most innovative works and was groundbreaking for the further development of the genre.
action
The focus is on the historical figure of Nero . An antiquated element remains in the allegorical figures of the prologue with which the opera begins. Virtue (Virtù), luck (Fortuna) and love (Amor) prove to each other their strengths. Ultimately, Cupid ends the dispute by promising to prove that it is love alone that determines the course of events above all else.
first act
The action takes place in ancient Rome around the year 62 AD. Ottone , having returned to Rome from the field, must find out in front of Poppea's house that Nerone is with her and that she became his lover, although she once made a promise to him. When he notices two soldiers guarding the egomaniacal Emperor of Rome who is staying at Poppea, he withdraws, hurt. The soldiers also vent their anger at Nerone in sarcastic remarks, but are interrupted by the lovers who appear.
In a tender farewell scene, Nerone promises to cast his wife Ottavia out in favor of Poppea. Poppea is left alone and gives in to her hope. Only her wet nurse Arnalta has concerns.
Ottavia is furious at Nerone's insult. Her nurse Nutrice knows what to do: Ottavia should look for a lover to avenge the breach of loyalty. The Empress indignantly rejects them. Even the speeches of the philosopher Seneca , who continues to advise her virtuous steadfastness, cannot calm the deceived empress. The page Valletto supports his mistress by mocking Seneca, the emperor's educator and political advisor, and frankly declaring wisdom to be a hoax of all philosophers. Nevertheless, Ottavia asks the philosopher to stand up for them against Nerone's intentions with the Senate and the people.
While Seneca contemplates the burden of rule, a messenger of death prophesies his imminent end. A conversation between Seneca and Nerone, in which the emperor reveals his decision to cast Ottavia and marry Poppea, culminates in Nerone's outburst. Seneca's warnings are not heard.
Poppea fears Seneca's influence and slanders Nerone. He decides to order Seneca to commit suicide.
Ottone is desperate that Poppea will turn away, and since he fears that she could slander him too, he considers killing Poppea. When his former lover Drusilla appears, he appears to be making love.
Seneca praises the tranquility of his country life when Liberto brings him Nerone's fatal order. In full accord with the stoic virtues, the philosopher welcomes death as a happy fate. He gathers his students around him and opens his wrists in the bathroom.
Second act
Since Seneca is now dead, Nerone and his friend and court poet Lucano celebrate a dissolute feast. The emperor begins to devise a hymn to Poppea's beauty and charms, at which he falls into the greatest ecstasy.
Ottone is appalled by his own murder plans and accepts his fate of being devoted to this beautiful woman. Ottavia orders him to murder Poppea in woman's clothes. She threatens: "If you disobey me, / I'll sue you at Nerone, / That you wanted / wanted to rape me, / I will see to it / that torture and death hit you today". Ottavia now gives herself completely to her thirst for revenge.
While Valletto is raising nurse Nutrice at her age, Drusilla cheers that she has regained her lover Ottone. This now lets Drusilla in on the murder assignment and wants to swap clothes with her.
Poppea rests on her bed and Arnalta sings a lullaby for her. Then the disguised Ottone sneaks up to kill the sleeping woman. But Cupid rises from the sky and vows to protect Poppea and prevent the planned murderous attack. Ottone flees. Arnalta, deceived by the cloak, sets the emperor's watch on Drusilla.
Third act
The unsuspecting Drusilla is arrested and has to discover that the murder has failed. In order to protect Ottone, she takes all the blame on herself, but the latter now confesses to being the perpetrator on Ottavia's behalf. Nerone gives both life in exile. Ottavia's repudiation is now also announced. Nothing stands in the way of a wedding between the emperor and his beloved.
While Ottavia laments her difficult fate, Poppea is crowned the new empress. Nurse Arnalta envisions her future as a member of the “upper class” of Rome, while the highly aristocratic lovers indulge in ecstasy. The love gods and the triumphant Cupid join the choir, which lets Poppea and Nerone's expression of their intoxicating love happiness have the last word (one of the most touching love duets in all of opera history): “ Pur ti miro / you only see”.
reception
Two manuscripts have survived from the score : one in Venice and the other in Naples , but neither of them corresponds to the original version . The drama in musica is one of the first to be produced not for a royal court, but for a public house, the Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice , where Monteverdi's late work was premiered in the carnival season 1642–1643. The then famous prima donna Anna Renzi embodied the tragic role of Ottavia, and it is believed that she also sang another role, possibly Drusilla.
The opera is considered in the professional world “as a prime example of the early Venetian opera and as trend-setting for opera in general, because it provides a distinctive type of personnel: the high couple, which is opposed to a lower rank, the comical old man and last but not least the page in love, the lives on in Mozart's Cherubino from ' Figaro's Wedding ' and in Octavian, Strauss's ' Rosenkavalier ' ”(Jansen 2002, p. 21).
The stage work is a Venetian carnival opera, which however has nothing to do with shrill "Gaudi". This is understood to mean historically operas that were performed during the carnival season (after Christmas until Ash Wednesday).
After the Second World War, both scholarly engagement with opera and performance practice - important were the performances under Herbert von Karajan (Vienna, 1963) and Nikolaus Harnoncourt (Zurich, 1977) - as well as the publication of audio files and DVDs a real boom that continues to this day.
expenditure
- Hugo Goldschmidt (Leipzig, 1904 in Studies on the History of Italian Opera in the 17th Century)
- Vincent d'Indy (Paris, 1908)
- Gian Francesco Malipiero (Vienna, 1931; in Claudio Monteverdi: Tutte le opere)
- Ernst Krenek (Vienna, 1935)
- Giacomo Benvenuti (Milan, 1937)
- Giorgio Federico Ghedini (Milan, 1953)
- Hans Redlich (Kassel, 1958)
- Walter Goehr (Vienna and London, 1960)
- Raymond Leppard (London, 1966)
- Alan Curtis (London, 1989)
- René Jacobs (Cologne, 1990); Attempt of an original version ("Versione originale"); using the Malipiero 1931 edition as the basic framework, commissioned by WDR
literature
- Hermann Kretzschmar: Monteverdi's "Incoronazione di Poppea" . In: Vierteljahrsschrift für Musikwissenschaft , Volume 10 (1894), Issue 4, pp. 483-530 ( digitized version )
- Hans Renner: Opera Operetta Musical. A guide through the musical theater of our time. Munich 1969, pp. 26-28
- Wolfgang Osthoff : L'incoronazione di Poppea. In: Piper's Encyclopedia of Musical Theater . Volume 4: Works. Massine - Piccinni. Piper, Munich / Zurich 1991, ISBN 3-492-02414-9 , pp. 253-259.
- Tim Carter: Re-Reading Poppaea : Some Thoughts on Music and Meaning in Monteverdi's Last Opera. In: Journal of the Royal Musical Association 122 (1997) pp 173-204.
- R. Fath: Reclam's opera guide . Stuttgart 1999 (36th edition), pp. 19-23
- J. Jansen: crash course: opera. Cologne 2002, pp. 15-21
- E. Schmierer (Ed.): Lexicon of the Opera. Volume 1 A - Le, Laaber 2002, pp. 717-720
- Barbara Zuber: Open and hidden truths. To Monteverdi's opera “L'incoronazione di Poppea” . In: Hanspeter Krellmann / Jürgen Schläder (eds.): The modern composer builds on truth. Baroque operas from Monteverdi to Mozart. Metzler, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-476-01946-2 , pp. 69-78
- Stephan Saecker: Monteverdi's "The Coronation of Poppea": The Triumphant Cupid . In: DIE TONKUNST online , issue 0609, September 1, 2006 ( archive )
Web links
- L'Incoronazione di Poppea : Sheet music and audio files in the International Music Score Library Project
- Libretto (Italian), Venice 1656. Digitized at Google Books
- Work information and libretto (Italian) as full text on librettidopera.it
- L'incoronazione di Poppea (Claudio Monteverdi) in the Corago information system of the University of Bologna
- Plot and libretto by L'incoronazione di Poppea in German at Opera-Guide's target page due to change of URL currently not available
- Discography of L'incoronazione di Poppea at Operadis
Individual evidence
- ↑ Nicola Badolato: Renzi, Anna , in: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani , Volume 87, 2016, online at Treccani (Italian; accessed January 31, 2020)
- ↑ Joachim Steinheuer: Renzi, Anna , in: MGG online , 2005/2016, online (accessed on January 31, 2020)
- ↑ Rebecca Cypess: Anna Renzi , in: Encyclopaedia Britannica (update January 1, 2020), online (English; accessed January 31, 2020)