L’Incoronazione di Poppeia, Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Paris
By Francis Carlin [Financial Times]
Published: October 15 2004 03:00 | Last updated: October 15 2004 03:00
If you liked David McVicar’s staging of Agrippina, you may like his new Poppeia. Or you may share my view that he has lost the sense of proportion that characterised Agrippina and has gone overboard.
After the lukewarm reaction to his laudable efforts to be serious in Semele, McVicar has scuttled back into the world of high camp and trivialised Monteverdi’s last opera in a glitzy cabaret.
Nero is a showbiz star who sniffs coke and swigs champagne from the bottle, Poppeia is a spoilt brat and her nurse, in drag of course, graduates from an old tart in pink dressing gown, fluffy slippers and rollers to a glam Edna Everage.
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