A heavy crown: austere Monteverdi at the Staatsoper

By Hugo Shirley, 14 December 2017

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“Mameli’s Poppea was nonetheless compelling, a slow whirl of winding legs and languid glances”

Reviewed at Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Berlin on 13 December 2017

Monteverdi, L'incoronazione di Poppea, SV 308

Staatsoper Berlin

Diego Fasolis, Conductor

Eva-Maria Höckmayr, Director

Jens Kilian, Set Designer

Julia Rösler, Costume Designer

Max Emanuel Cenčić, Nerone

Lucia Cirillo, Amore, Valletto

Evelin Novak, La Virtù, Drusilla

Mark Milhofer, Arnalta

Gyula Orendt, Lucano, Liberto

Franz-Josef Selig, Seneca

Katharina Kammerloher, Ottavia

Xavier Sabata, Ottone

Anna Prohaska, Poppea

Roberta Mameli, Poppea

Andrew Watts, Nutrice

Narine Yeghiyan, La Fortuna

Olaf Freese, Lighting Designer

Irene Selka, Lighting Designer

Mark Schachtsiek, Dramaturgy

Roman Reeger, Dramaturgy

Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin

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****1

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**111

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***11

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**111

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***11

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*****

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Hugo Shirley

Hugo Shirley is a Berlin-based writer and musicologist. He has written widely as a critic in the UK, including for The Spectator, the Financial Times and Daily Telegraph, and has held editorial posts at both Opera and Gramophone. He was editor of 30-Second Opera (Ivy Press, 2015) and has a PhD in musicology from King's College London, where his thesis focused on Strauss and Hofmannsthal’s Die Frau ohne Schatten.