4 / 5 stars . His Agrippina stalked the stage in a power suit; Nero was a slouching, sullen teenager; there was carousing at a stylish bar, complete with cocktail harpsichordist. Review: Agrippina 10:09, 3rd October 2019. 2014 in review: opera. Even by her own exacting standards, DiDonato gives one of her finest performances, wonderfully voiced and acted, and keeping us just the right side of empathy throughout. Ms. DiDonato plays — and sometimes overplays — Agrippina as a boozy harpy, almost stumbling as she walks and shimmying to the music in her head. However, I will look again at this structure to see to what extent some compromise with the Opera project's preferred format is possible. Agrippina – Handel. (Opera in Review) By Citroh, Paula. This “Agrippina” — yanked from ancient Rome into a deliciously bleak vision of our time, played with electric vividness, and starring a guns-blazing Joyce DiDonato — should put to rest, once and for all, the notion that Handel belongs at the Met less than Verdi, Puccini or Wagner. 5 star 87% 4 star 7% 3 star 7% 2 star 0% (0%) 0% 1 star 0% (0%) 0% Agrippina: Opera Arias. e Agrippina (HWV 6) is an opera seria in three acts by George Frideric Handel with a libretto by Cardinal Vincenzo Grimani. Agrippina . Buratto, attractive yet dangerous, sounds admirably sonorous over the role’s wide vocal range. Perhaps because he was all too aware that its subject, the ruthlessness of power and the legitimacy of rule, would hit raw nerves at a time when the Hanoverian succession to the Stuart dynasty was a matter of huge controversy and debate. Ms. Rae with another of Poppea’s suitors, Claudio (Matthew Rose). But the audience at the premiere in Venice, for what turned out to be the first big hit of Handel’s career, would have known that the satire was directed at Grimani’s political enemies, including the pope, just as much as at the amorality of the ancients. Her final moment in the staging, wondering where her venality has finally brought her, shows her hilariously and poignantly unwilling to return to the annals of history — that is, to die. ... Find The Metropolitan Opera on Instagram (opens new window) Find The Metropolitan Opera … Review: The Met Opera Is Handel’s House in ‘Agrippina’. Agrippina was the wife of the emperor Claudius, and mother, by a previous marriage, to Nero. Her coloratura is a joy to hear and watching her take charge of her character is a highlight of the opera. into a deliciously bleak vision of our time, the Public Theater’s incendiary depiction. It may sound trivial to start with the costumes for Barrie Kosky's production, but these expressions of personality are deeply woven into the production's thinking, and other characters overlook these power dresses at their peril. In the pit, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment are on fine form for Maxim Emelyanychev, who conducts with terrific energy and panache. Opera and Classical Reviews. Agrippina @ Barbican Hall, London 31 May 2019. by Sam Smith published: 3 Jun 2019 in Opera and Classical Reviews. (Opera in Review). Bold, snicker-out-loud funny, magnetic and unsettling through its power-struggle convolutions, this production musically and dramatically fills the company’s looming proscenium. Making her Met debut as Poppea, the soprano Brenda Rae proved herself a gifted physical comedian, in one memorable sequence tipsily trying — and failing — to hide behind a bouquet at the bar. In another debut, the countertenor Nicholas Tamagna was a brightly insinuating Narcissus (Narciso); the bass Matthew Rose was a convincingly bluff Claudius (Claudio). It’s rare that we have a Royal Opera House premiere from a major composer. George Frideric Handel. Link/Page Citation Glimmerglass Opera had a particularly strong season. The set is a metal box that opens out into either a series of murky corridors of power where Joyce DiDonato’s formidable Agrippina plots and schemes, or a garishly lit apartment, where Handel collides with bedroom farce, as Lucy Crowe’s canny Poppea plays her lovers off against each other. Opera and Classical reviews while the singing was, for the most part, first-rate and fagioli. S lyrical warmth and restraint ago, but at the Met, Agrippina Opera... Lower down, her tone is vibrant and articulate, with few glimmers of hope or virtue in cynical. 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