Crowning glory

Michael Tanner

Saturday, 12th March 2005

The central couple couldn’t be more aptly cast than here: Vesselina Kasarova, in a state of acute décolletage, and Jonas Kaufmann at last having a chance to act and sing as he looks, their behaviour towards one another casually intimate, at the same time that their mutual desire almost awes them, if anything could. Harnoncourt has adjusted things so that Poppea is motivated entirely by desire, whereas the ambition to be Empress which blends so smoothly with the lust is a thought-provoking element in the plot as I see it. Kasarova, with her sultry tones and reckless manner, is well suited to either interpretation. Kaufmann has the wilfulness, petulance, tenderness and hauteur, not to mention the creamy tenor tones, to make a Nerone both alluring and frightening. My only reservation about them was in the final duet, a matter of whispered endearments, but elaborately ornamented by Harnoncourt and sung more as a proclamation of their love by the blissful wicked pair. None of the happy pair’s opponents stands a chance. The Ottavia of Francesca Provvisionato, grand and passionate as she is, is locked in misery and incapable of sensible planning; Ottone, an ungrateful role which Franco Fagioli did nothing to inflate, is at the mercy of whichever woman is lecturing him. Seneca, gloriously projected in the black tones of Laszlo Polgar, manages to be both impressive and an irritating bore, so one sympathises with the offensive Liberto of Gabriel Bermudez, telling him to get lost and quickly. And one sympathises utterly with the nurse Arnalta of Jean-Paul Fouchecourt, this marvellous singer and artist who can’t help stealing the limelight whenever he appears, yet who never seems to want to be anything more than a contributor to the whole action. Without a hint of weakness in the cast, and urgent projection of the drama on all sides, this was yet another of those non-staged performances which, without the impertinent intervention of a director, enable one to think about the work in the light of receiving its full emotional impact.