At the end of his trip, in Venice, Händel met Vincenzo Grimani, an Italian cardinal, diplomat, and opera librettist, who also owned the Teatro San Giovanni Grisostomo, now known as the Teatro Malibran. For the 1709-10 Venice Carnevale season, it was probably Grimani who provided Händel with the libretto of an opera called Agrippina. The opera premiered in the Teatro Grisostomo on 26 December 1709. It was a triumph. From its opening night it was given an unprecedented run of twenty-seven consecutive performances.
The story is situated in ancient Rome. Upon hearing the news that her husband, the Emperor Claudio, has died during a storm at sea, Agrippina plots to secure the throne for Nerone, her son by a previous marriage. With the support of Pallante and Narcisso, Nerone is hailed as the new Emperor before the Senate. However, it turns out that Claudio is in fact alive and Ottone saved his life. In gratitude Claudio has declared that Ottone shall be heir to the throne. Matters are complicated by the fact that Claudio, Ottone and Nerone are all in love with the courtesan, Poppea. As Agrippina thickens the plot, Claudio tries to resolve the matter by keeping Ottone as his heir and allowing Nerone to marry Poppea. But Nerone values his political ambitions more than Poppea and Ottone values Poppea more than his desire for the throne. In the end, the empire is left to Nerone and Ottone is given Poppea.
The recitatives, which play a key role in this opera seria, were originally composed by Händel. The arias on the other hand, were largely recycled from earlier compositions, a practice he continued throughout his career. As a consequence, the opera contains many layers of allusions and references to the content and meaning of the original sources. Characterizing credible individuals was not Händel’s first concern, nor that of his librettist. It lay with theatrical and musical allegory, for example in Nerone’s siciliano arias, portraying his unbridled lust, or Claudio’s decadent monumental entrance aria. And of course there is Agrippina with her many musical masques ranging from moralizing reflections to exuberant victory cries. One of the most beautiful examples is her wonderful entrance aria L’alma mia fra le tempeste, where she sings about her self-confidence. It harks back to an aria of Mary Magdalene in Händel’s sacred oratorio, La Resurrezione, reflecting on the coming resurrection. Every character in Agrippina is construed of several literary and musical layers; it tells a story not of tragic personages, but of incarnated allegories and metaphors.
The production of Parisian director Mariame Clément, who previously interpreted Cavalli’s Giasone and Rossini’s Il viaggio a Reims in the Flemish Opera, is perfectly in line with Händel’s approach. Drawing out the parallels between Agrippina and modern soap opera, Clément transposes the scene to a movie set from the eighties, with Claudio and Agrippina being made to resemble classic TV villains like Dallas’s J R Ewing and Dynasty’s scheming Alexis Colby. It works amazingly. The transfer by Clément and her set designer, Julia Hansen, from eighteenth-century Venice to a twentieth-century oil city is a masterstroke. The succession of movie sets, for example a board meeting room on the thirty-eighth floor of a skyscraper (representing the Roman Senate), an exquisite tennis club, and (my favorite) Claudio’s bathroom, render the long performance of more than four hours with its many da capo arias both accessible and digestible. The narrative is visually supported by a split video screen over the podium that never dominates but accentuates entertaining details, for example Agrippina’s secretary summoning Pallante and Narciso to her office, or a detailed look into Poppea’s wardrobe.
The entire spectacle is driven by a crowd of excellent female singers. Ann Hallenberg and Elena Tsallagova in particular stand out. The Swedish mezzo-soprano Hallenberg, who impressed Flemish audiences as Arsace in Rossini’s Semiramide and who sang the role of Agrippina in La Fenice in 2009 (three hundred years after its premiere), gave an astonishing performance. She is not only a terrific actress, but also an impeccable singer, dominating the performance from beginning to end. Young Russian soprano Elena Tsallagova gave a convincing rendition of a carefree, funny and at times hysterical Poppea, while Swedish mezzo-soprano Kristina Hammarström and Croation mezzo-soprano Renata Pokupic were well-matched as the antagonists Ottone and Nerone. When I saw the performance a second time, Pokupic was replaced, due to illness, by the peerless Josè Maria Lo Monaco, who sang the role from the side of the stage while the part itself was played, rather poorly, by an assistant director. Among the male singers, only Umberto Chiummo as Claudio was convincing. João Fernandes and José Lemos disappointed as Pallante and Narciso.
In this time of cutbacks and tightening of budgets, the Flemish opera decided not to hire a specialized and expensive baroque orchestra, but made the adventurous choice of using its own symphony orchestra. Luckily, it had an excellent conductor in British maestro Paul McCreesh, who is internationally renowned for his expertise in the Renaissance and Baroque repertoires and who led the orchestra with precision and panache.
The production of Agrippina in the Flemish Opera is a co-production with the Ópera de Oviedo, where it will be performed from 16 until 22 December 2012, with a cast including Anna Bonitatibus as Agrippina and Pietro Spagnoli as Claudio.