Sat 11 August. In German with English Supertitles.
I’m not sure the audience were prepared for what they were going to get. This family group certainly wasn’t.
The stage opens to a performance of Cole Porter’s ‘Love For Sale’. Was it some sort of introduction before the opera starts? But no, it set the tone, and was the first of several Porter songs. This appearance of the mischief-making Amor was followed by our introduction to Ottone and then the darkest of dark love affairs between Nero and Poppea.
There were two turning points for us the audience, I think.
Near the end of the first scene with Nero and Poppea when the audience realise it is OK to laugh: it is meant to be funny.
The almost-round of applause at the end of Ottavia’s aria. From now on, the audience knew they could enjoy the singing as they would an opera or musical.
Once we knew the rules we could sit back and enjoy a carnival of Cole Porter performed as opera, recitative performed as pop song, soliloquies performed as music hall, death plots performed as 50s musical, love scenes performed as cabaret, existential nightmares performed as madrigals.
For an Australian director (Barry Kosky), producing an adaptation from an Italian composer of the sixteenth century, the work combined the best German ingredients: Expressionism, Caberet, cynicism and wry, wry wit.
Sure it is stylisted. Sure, sooner or later we get the expected buggery scene. Sure, the director goes for any novelty he can think of (this was the first time I have seen a duet where one of the couple performs in Sign - it was a good thing we had the supertitles!) but that doesn't mean the show lacks content. There's a tragic flavour to Poppea (and Nero). You know what is going to be Poppea’s ultimate fate from the opening scene when Nero takes his leave by singing ‘Every time we say goodbye I die a little’ while absent-mindedly almost strangling her to death. (Suetonius reports her eventual cause of death was Nero kicking her in the abdomen while she was pregnant.)
There is also a sadness in Nero's betrayal of Seneca. There is a real friendship with Seneca (displayed in a suitably Nero-ic way of wanking Seneca off in the bath while threatening him with death) so there is a looney sadness in his lament after Seneca’s execution.
I also liked the almost subterranean elements of the 16th centory Ur-text: the actress playing Poppea makes it clear that she knows what she is signing up for, but she is driven by insane ambition; Amor, of course, shafts everybody; Drusilla and Ottone, although banished and penniless, will (might) live with true love in pastoral contentment; finally crowned, Poppea will get the just deserts of ambition – having achieved his object, Nero is already bored.
The singing was uniformly astounding from all the cast (frequently while performing the most energetic dancing, knifing, lovemaking, torture etc). On the night I was there, I think the audience was most taken with Beatrice Frey as Ottavia, whose almost-but-not-not-quite-contained mania suited the production's most operatic pieces, which she performed with surety. She has a rare skill at singing while sobbing, laughing and making the less easy to name sounds of mental breakdown.
However, I have to mention the range of singing and acting from Martin Neidermair as Ottone and cannot leave out Kyrre Kvam as Nero – who managed to pull off the trick of being barking mad, bloody frightening, sexually perverted, emotionally tender, childlike, sympathetic and even wise, within the space of two and a bit hours.
The musicality of arrangement and performance was awesome, the delivery of any one song frequently requiring segues through the styles of matinee-idol, rebirth trauma, cabaret, music hall parody, rock, aria and degenerate expressionism.
The director of the production led the small orchestra and played the piano with passion - piano being the instrument played constantly through the entire length of the performance. Another noticeable feat of endurance was the astounding amount of time Ruth Brauer-Kvam (Drusilla) was able to spend on her tiptoes.
And I must mention that Poppea has the most fantastic mouth-bling outwith New York.
A diverting evening: urbane, musical, skillfull, funny, spectacular. The cast and the director seemed gratified to get three curtain calls on the opening night. It is going to be a sell out.
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