The Coronation of Poppea at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées

Authors: Claudio Monteverdi and the Banquet Celestial

The place: Rome in 62 AD. Nero’s reign is at its peak in terms of decadence and cruelty. The emperor, after having his own mother, Agrippina, executed, manages to have the Empress Octavia (whom he will have assassinated a few months later) divorced in order to marry his mistress Poppea, not without having exiled the latter’s official lover, Otho, to Lusitania….

The characters

Nero: he is the figure of the ancient criminal par excellence, hyper-sexualized, bloodthirsty and orgiastic debauchery, having had all the members of his family assassinated throughout his reign, whom he considered threats, like a good paranoiac. However, Monteverdi essentially makes him a mad lover in the work, devoured by his passion and obsessed by his mistress. Ray Chenez, her interpreter, only partially does her justice. If the sensuality and delicacy are well served by her poetic phrasing and a notable elegance, the voice sometimes lacks flexibility in the high part of the role and betrays some intonation problems, going as far as tension in the most torrential passages of her duets with Poppea.

Poppea: she is the ambitious and careerist manipulator par excellence, encouraging the emperor in all his criminal excesses. Catherine Trottmann, strapped into a devilishly sexy midnight blue dress, makes short work of the nevertheless overwhelming role of the young scheming aristocrat who became empress, at the cost of many misdeeds and intrigues. From her rich, round and coppery midrange, she unleashes infinite phrases with an elastic and controlled breath, offering melting pianissimi in the high notes, or in the airs of rage and exultation, offers the audience a sharp and percussive metal that nails the audience to the spot as the conviction of the singer and the actress carries away the slightest reluctance.

Octavie: Rarely has the fallen empress been so well defended on stage, first by the intelligence of the text and the quality of the articulation, by the depth of the timbre and its harmonic richness, by the fluidity of her breath and the precision of her focus, and finally, and above all by her musicality on the surface of the skin. Victoire Bunel embodies a dignified, noble, deeply desperate and terribly moving Octavie.

Othon: Poppea’s rejected lover (in reality her husband forced to divorce according to Suetonius) is one of the nice surprises of the evening. Paul-Antoine Benos-Dijan defends this clumsy and slightly whiny character with great passion, eloquence and empathy, rallying the audience to his cause through his dramatic involvement, but also through his vocal qualities. His robust, ample and dark-coloured countertenor effortlessly fills the entire room, serving each scene with thoughtful phrasing with flawless musicality, darting round and warm high notes without the slightest hint of forcing.

Seneca: the figure of the Philosopher, Nero’s tutor carried away by the madness of his master who forces him to commit suicide after he dared to criticise Octavia’s repudiation and the future marriage between the two Machiavellian lovers, is a role of choice for the great basses. Adrien Mathonat manages to make his way between the big names who have played the role, with powerful means and an explosive volume sometimes going to excess. His quality of projection is however tarnished by sounds that are a little congested, a certain stiffness in the expression and a slightly frozen theatricality.

The Nurse: Paul Figuier, announced as suffering, seems indeed to have problems with placement in the midrange and in the bass, some ends of sentences seeming to unscrew and his intonation failing him. But he succeeds in mobilizing his means and his talent to give body to this Nurse who is both droll and sententious, first by his comical and good-natured nature, and by the beautiful metal that he breathes into his luscious midrange and his airy high notes, making the lullaby in the gardens (Oblivion soave) one of the most touching suspended moments of the evening.

Valeria La Grotta alternates between Fortune, Damigella and Drusilla with a false lightness and a disarming ingenuousness, giving the young patrician in love with Othon a real complexity and varied colours, bringing out clear and channelled high notes at will, and offering the Goddess Fortune a beautiful, frank and solid monologue, served by a well-calibrated medium and an always equal projection.

Camille Poul skils with ease and brilliance over the yet dissimilar roles of the Knave and Cupid (the big winner of the evening), composing with his warm and bright voice, rich in harmonics and with a velvety texture, for the Knave a mocking and provocative figure, and for Cupid an arrogant, unscrupulous God, sure of his facts and scornful of the consequences of his triumph, with a cheekiness, a quality of articulation, an Italianità in the elocution of the text that are entirely commendable. Sebastian Monti is a solid but somewhat bland Lucan in his only scene of madness, where rather than showing himself totally drunk with blood and lust in this dizzying vocal one-upmanship with Nero, he seems focused on the accuracy of his vocalises and on the quality and impact of his great final high notes, which are nevertheless executed without difficulty, rather than on the contagious madness of the character.

Thibaut Givaja seems to have more fun as a sleeping soldier or a clumsy imperial emissary, and takes advantage of his short scenes to portray, with his well-placed and well-channeled voice, striking characters that hit the mark.

Finally, Yannis François is more convincing in the trio of Seneca’s disciples, where he skillfully blends his timbre and phrasing with his two companions, than in the role of the Lictor, where his poorly drawn phrasing gets lost in the demands of Monteverdian composition.

Brigade without commissioner

Finally, Le Banquet Céleste serves this complex score without a conductor, in the absence of Damien Guillon, who has moved on to other horizons. Certainly, the knowledge of the work and the numerous performances during the Breton creation of the production are clearly heard, and we note with relief the great capacity for reciprocal listening and the common sensitivity of all the instrumentalists to defend this almost three-hour thriller. But the slightly limited number of musicians (only twelve) to defend this reference work is a little undersized, delivering to the audience a sound that is too limited and lacking in emphasis. The absence of a conductor can go unnoticed in the long stretches of accompanied recitatives, the continuists being in the habit of directing themselves on the supports of the singers’ text without necessary direction, but this absence cruelly jumps out at the eyes and ears in the overly repetitive ritornellos and in the massive orchestral passages, where the two violins, the violone and the woodwinds seem a little lost without the passion and vital momentum of a conductor on which to graft themselves.

The TCE audience salutes the athletic performance and the musical generosity of the instrumentalists and singers with bursts of warm and hearty applause.