L'incoronazione di Poppea, SV 308

Based loosely on actual events in 1st-century AD Rome, The Coronation of Poppea charts the consuming erotic obsession of the Emperor Nero for the beautiful Poppea Sabina.  Ruthlessly sweeping aside anyone who stands in the way of their union – including Nero’s wife Octavia and the poet and philosopher Seneca – Nero and Poppea triumph over all their opponents and rejoice in one of the most sexually-charged love duets ever written.

The moral ambivalence of one of opera’s earliest masterpieces ensures that it remains to this day one of the most shocking and compelling.  Tim Albery, who directed a ravishing production of Handel’s Giulio Cesare for Opera North in 2012, has prepared a new performing version of a dramma musicale about which almost everything is disputed, including its authorship. 

A cast of superb singer-actors is led by the American soprano Sandra Piques Eddy (Poppea) and the British counter-tenor James Laing (Nerone).  The conductor is Laurence Cummings, one of Britain’s most exciting and versatile exponents of historically-informed performance.   

Sung in English. Performance lasts approximately 3 hours.