I wish I couldn't write

I have been to the opera, Opera North's production of Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea; or was it? It seems, according to the programme, that he didn't write all of the music and in particular the best known bit - the duet at the end between Nero and Poppea - definitely wasn't by him. So, school of Monteverdi is perhaps a better attribution. The libretto was apparently all written by Busenello, but this is an English translation in a fairly modern vernacular. Indeed I swear I heard an homage to Hotel California at one point.

tamen vos can nunquam licentia

It's a raunchy production probably best viewed from my post-divorce eyrie in the upper balcony where one got the full flavour of the table-top writhings of the no-better-than-she-ought-to-be Poppea. Even at a distance they were hot stuff; I'm not sure how James Laing as Nero kept in tune with his face in Sandra Piques Eddy's cleavage.

Madame may need an insole

Being from the very dawn of opera as mass entertainment the piece relies on countertenors and women playing men's roles. Indeed it isn't until the arrival of Seneca about forty-five minutes in that anyone sings in a lower register. His arrival is also welcomed by a discerning section of the audience (that would be me then) because he was, as you know, a stoic philosopher of some renown. Neither that nor his broken voice did him any good though because he was dead by the interval.

La mort de Seneque

So, another Roman gore-fest only loosely based on history with people killing each other and themselves for fun. Not my favourite period of operatic music, but well worth seeing - although be warned that the bad guys win.