| The Coronation of Poppea | Victorian Opera |
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Victoria’s state opera company, Victorian Opera, will begin its winter season on Friday, July 18 with five performances of Monteverdi’s extraordinary operatic endeavour, The Coronation of Poppea. This fully-staged production at the South Melbourne Town Hall will be conducted by Victorian Opera Music Director Richard Gill and directed by multi-award-winning Melbourne theatre director and now Artistic Director of Perth’s Black Swan Theatre Company, Kate Cherry.
The Coronation of Poppea depicts a ruthless, ambitious woman determined to marry a maniacal emperor in an opera in which evil truly triumphs over good. It will feature brilliant Australian countertenor David Hansen, who recently made impressive debuts with Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and returns from his Chicago base to play the infatuated Nero.
Vivacious soprano Tiffany Speight, who shone in Victorian Opera’s 2008 Season Opening Gala Concert and who regularly performs with major opera companies throughout Australasia, will be the irresistible Poppea, whose charms and ambition propel her inexorably towards the throne.
Her plotting and scheming will be aided and abetted by Daniel Goodwin (Ottone), Sally Wilson (Ottavia/La Fortuna), Jacqueline Porter (Drusilla/La Virtù), Paul Hughes (Seneca), Isabel Veale (Arnalta), Adrian McEniery (Lucano/Primo Soldato), Jessica Aszodi (Amore), Edmond Choo (Liberto), Laurence Meikle (Littore) and Jacob Caine (Secondo Soldato).
The Coronation of Poppea is presented in association with the Australian National Academy of Music, whose musicians will join forces in the orchestra with some of Australia finest baroque exponents, including Paul Wright and Howard Penney. It will be performed in the excellent acoustic of the South Melbourne Town Hall.
“This work is a masterpiece of operatic realisation,” said Richard Gill. “It’s a sparse, bitter, misanthropic piece, where everyone is listening to everyone else’s conversations. I consider this work to be opera’s answer to Shakespeare as there is the same level of poetic intensity in the music.”
Victorian Opera presents
The Coronation of Poppea
sung in Italian with English surtitles
Venue: South Melbourne Town Hall
Dates/Times: 7:30pm Friday July 18, 5:30pm Sunday July 20, and 7:30pm Tuesday 22, Thursday 24 and Saturday 26
Tickets: A-Reserve Full $85 (Conc $68) and B-Reserve Full $53 (Conc $42). Duration: Three hours including one twenty-minute interval
Bookings: Ticketmaster 1300 723 038
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