Claudio Monteverdi/ Philippe Boesmans – Poppea e Nerone
Madrid, Teatro Real
Premiere on June 12, 2012
Krzysztof Warlikowski, stage direction
Malgorzata Szczesniak, costume design
Nadja Michael und Sofia Soloviy, Poppea
Charles Castronovo, Nerone
Maria Riccarda Wesseling, Ottavia
William Towers, Ottone
Williard White, Seneca
Ekaterina Siurina, Drusilla
Lyubov Petrova, Virtur/ Palas
Elena Tsallagova, Fortune/ Dame
Serge Kakudji, Love
Conductor: Sylvain Cambreling
Madrid, Teatro Real
Premiere on June 12, 2012
Krzysztof Warlikowski, stage direction
Malgorzata Szczesniak, costume design
Nadja Michael und Sofia Soloviy, Poppea
Charles Castronovo, Nerone
Maria Riccarda Wesseling, Ottavia
William Towers, Ottone
Williard White, Seneca
Ekaterina Siurina, Drusilla
Lyubov Petrova, Virtur/ Palas
Elena Tsallagova, Fortune/ Dame
Serge Kakudji, Love
Conductor: Sylvain Cambreling
Reviews
El PAIS, June 14 2012
[...] The musical proposition is extraordinary. Cambreling is its fervent champion - with full conviction, highly articulated and expressive; and Klangforum Wien is impeccable in its execution. [...]
EL MUNDO, June 13 2012
[...] Conductor Cambreling leads a refined Klangforum Wien with conviction, assurance and love for detail. [...]
elmimparcial, online June 13 2012
[...] its French conductor, Sylvain Cambreling, together with Klangforum Wien, an ensemble famous for its interpretation of contemporary music, was hailed beyond dispute by the audience. [...]
Quand Gérard Mortier m’a demandé de réaliser une nouvelle orchestration de l’Incoronazione di Poppea de Monteverdi il souhaitait une version imaginée par un compositeur d’aujourd’hui.
Je lui ai tout de suite répondu que je n’étais pas musicologue et que je ne désirais pas faire une reconstitution historique.
Pour que cela soit clair je lui ai proposé d’utiliser des instruments tout à fait étrangers à l’époque de Monteverdi: clarinette, piano, harmonium, synthétiseur etc. sans pour autant changer mélodiquement et harmoniquement le déroulement du manuscrit qui lui ne comporte que la ligne mélodique et une basse non harmonisée.
Ce qui m’a tout de suite frappé en travaillant sur ce manuscrit c’est l’extraordinaire dramaturgie mélodique et rythmique. Chaque personne est en effet définie et caractérisée par les modes et les tournures mélodiques. Je me suis tout de suite rendu compte qu’il ne fallait rien changer à cela. Cette façon de donner un caractère très défini à chaque personnage par sa ligne mélodique m’a personnellement beaucoup inspiré dans mes propres opéras.
J’ai également du proposer une organisation rythmique de la partition: les tempi et leur rapport organique. Là où je me suis senti le plus libre c’est dans l’orchestration du continuo. J’ai essayé d’établir une dramaturgie orchestrale en alternant certains instruments d’époque tels que le clavecin ou l’orgue positif avec leur double réalisé synthétiquement (alternance et mélange du vrai et du faux).
Tous ces mélanges et ces profusions instrumentales étaient pour moi une façon d’être baroque aujourd’hui. Je suis ravi que cette orchestration sera exécutée par un ensemble de musique contemporaine, l’Ensemble Klangforum, sous la direction de Sylvain Cambreling qui m’a beaucoup aidé à la réalisation de ce projet.
(Philippe Boesmans)
Je lui ai tout de suite répondu que je n’étais pas musicologue et que je ne désirais pas faire une reconstitution historique.
Pour que cela soit clair je lui ai proposé d’utiliser des instruments tout à fait étrangers à l’époque de Monteverdi: clarinette, piano, harmonium, synthétiseur etc. sans pour autant changer mélodiquement et harmoniquement le déroulement du manuscrit qui lui ne comporte que la ligne mélodique et une basse non harmonisée.
Ce qui m’a tout de suite frappé en travaillant sur ce manuscrit c’est l’extraordinaire dramaturgie mélodique et rythmique. Chaque personne est en effet définie et caractérisée par les modes et les tournures mélodiques. Je me suis tout de suite rendu compte qu’il ne fallait rien changer à cela. Cette façon de donner un caractère très défini à chaque personnage par sa ligne mélodique m’a personnellement beaucoup inspiré dans mes propres opéras.
J’ai également du proposer une organisation rythmique de la partition: les tempi et leur rapport organique. Là où je me suis senti le plus libre c’est dans l’orchestration du continuo. J’ai essayé d’établir une dramaturgie orchestrale en alternant certains instruments d’époque tels que le clavecin ou l’orgue positif avec leur double réalisé synthétiquement (alternance et mélange du vrai et du faux).
Tous ces mélanges et ces profusions instrumentales étaient pour moi une façon d’être baroque aujourd’hui. Je suis ravi que cette orchestration sera exécutée par un ensemble de musique contemporaine, l’Ensemble Klangforum, sous la direction de Sylvain Cambreling qui m’a beaucoup aidé à la réalisation de ce projet.
(Philippe Boesmans)
In this new production, Krzysztof Warlikowski has added to the musical prologue a theatrical prologue: in a classroom of an elitist English or American university a professor of philosophy is seen standing before a group of students destined to become the great makers and shakers of the social and political life of the State.
During his last class the professor is overwhelmed by a sensation of impotence; he begins to question his faculty for transmitting the best of himself and laments the choices he made as a youth, choices which have kept him aloof from both desire and love during his whole life.
When Ottone appears at the beginning of the first act, six years have passed since the end of the prologue. Now the State is in the hands of Nerone, a cruel tyrant. The three acts of the opera take place in the space of one single day; a decisive day for the protagonists.
For all of them, as much as for Seneca and as much as for his former students, the university classroom is still a fundamental space in spite of the time that has elapsed. That particular place, today in a sorry state of neglect, is where all began: the comprehension of the world, the interpretation of the self, and first loves. Since the establishment of the dictatorship of Nerone, they all regularly return to mock it or to reminisce about it. Seneca no longer gives classes, but he also frequently returns.
The chain of events which unfolds in the lapse of a few hours is produced with frenetic speed. Ottone returns after a long term in prison during which he has been tortured. He, formerly the husband of Poppea and still madly in love with her, now discovers she has become the passion of the emperor. He attempts to woo her back but in vain. Meanwhile Nerone’s wife, Ottavia, despairs on seeing that her husband is forsaking her and her Empire.
After understanding that her former professor Seneca, is of no help to her, Ottavia decides to eliminate her rival and compels Ottone to murder Poppea. She nevertheless is well aware that the day has come when all her hopes are to be fulfilled.
Hers is a one-track mind: become the empress at any price. She puts pressure on Nerone to repudiate Ottavia. Poppea believes that this will only be possible if she can persuade the emperor to get rid of Seneca, the man who represents for him a father figure, an oppressive moral contrast which prevents the emperor from uncontrollably indulging in all his desires. Poppea convinces Nerone to condemn his old professor, for whom she has mixed feelings, to death. Seneca’s suicide in the middle of the second act ushers in for his former students an epoch of chaos that will revel in murder and licentiousness. At the moment of his death Seneca’s hallucinations reappear just as they were in the prologue: His rejection of love haunts him again. He has realized too late that his decisions caused him to renounce what was most important for him. He will die without having known physical passion.
Drusilla, who has free access to both Ottavia and Poppea, is an intimate friend of the two enemies. During this fatal day, she tries to convince Ottone, with whom she has been in love for ages, to forget Poppea and accept her love. When Ottavia forces Ottone to murder her rival, Drusilla spontaneously decides to help him.
He disguises himself as Drusilla in order to get close to Poppea who is asleep, but he is incapable of putting an end to the life of the woman he loves owing to the intervention of Cupid who protects the ambitious beauty. Arrested by Nerone’s men, Ottone is condemned again to exile. This time Drusilla accompanies him.
Ottavia, undoubtedly protected by some political clique, is not executed, however she is repudiated. She renounces her title of empress and leaves Rome for good. Poppea finally gets what she was after: power. She has become Nerone’s new wife but leaving a trail of destruction behind her.
(© Teatro Real)