Ottone in villa was Vivaldi’s first opera, although premiered not in his native Venice, but at nearby Vicenza in 1713. The title character, Otho, is one of the four Roman emperors who ruled in the turbulent year 69 AD and is the same figure who appears in those two famous earlier Venetian operas, Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea and Handel’s Agrippina. Like those works, Vivaldi’s is not so much a typical opera seria of the time, glorifying aristocratic, monarchical rule, for which the Venetian republic had little use in its lands. Rather, it is more a pastoral opera, with comic, buffa elements, perhaps designed to warn the citizens of the Venetian empire of the corruption into which autocracy can be tempted. Instead of dealing with power and political loyalty as the central theme, it concerns – indeed seems to revel in – a chain of amorous intrigues surrounding the emperor in his countryside retreat; implicitly they serve as an analogy for the upheavals in the Roman empire at large which resulted in Otho’s suicide.
Nevertheless, the somewhat naïve and gullible emperor is more a cipher for three principal roles in the opera, with his adviser, Decio, constituting a more neutral persona and completing the small cast of five. Like those operas by Monteverdi and Handel, this drama is largely driven not by the male ruler or would-be ruler at the centre of power, but by the more entertainingly ambitious wiles of the women around them. (It’s worth remembering that in the Venetian polity, doges’ wives tended to have little authority in order to prevent them from creating a separate sphere of political influence within the state.) Here, Ottone’s mistress Cleonilla’s attention is drawn to the arrival of a new male page Ostilio, while Caio laments Cleonilla’s turning away from him. Ostilio turns out to be Tullia in disguise, who loves Caio and seeks revenge on Cleonilla to draw Caio to herself. Those who remember I, Claudius from either the books or the TV series will easily understand how the libretto for Vivaldi’s opera was adapted from an earlier one, turning the figures of the Emperor Claudius and Messalina of the latter into Ottone and Cleonilla here.
Giovanni Di Cicco’s production tends to play down the story’s comic and sensational elements. Instead, with little in the way of an overt narrative to sustain tension, the gaps in the inner emotional lives of the protagonists are filled in by the inclusion of a troupe of dancers who give visual representation and expression to their erotic yearnings. In fairly sparse Roman costume – shirtless for the men – and done up in ghostly white foundation for makeup, they don’t function as distinctive additional characters or a narrative strand to the drama. But, as a group, they draw out the often erotic yearnings and sometimes violent motivations of the existing characters with a subtle, haunting choreographic poetry.
Moreover, given the dark, shadowy set with little in it apart from a few Roman architectural fragments in allusion to the opera’s original setting, they provide a compelling and fluid dramaturgical thread through the rigid stop-start sequence of recitative and aria, typical of a Baroque opera which some find makes for a disconnected drama. Having mounted a production with the same set designer as here, Massimo Checchetto, on the larger stage of La Fenice during the period of the opening up of Covid lockdowns in the summer of 2020 which was necessarily more socially distanced as shown in pictures in the programme, Di Cicco’s new production (not merely a revision) clearly gains by becoming more closely-knit both physically on stage and psychologically, in the smaller setting of Venice’s other opera house.
A robust performance of the music from Diego Fasolis and the ensemble from La Fenice’s orchestra on modern instruments gives a more outward expression of the characters’ emotions. Grounded by a sturdy bass line, and vivid oboes garlanding the strings’ melodic lines, it provides apt contrast both with the somewhat more inscrutable action in the twilight on stage and among the arias of the score itself.
Margherita Maria Sala gives a reedy, and sometimes unsettled and unsettling account of the trouser role of Ottone, compared with which Carlotta Colombo’s more radiant agility demonstrates a controlled, seriousness of purpose on Cleonilla’s part rather than a more obvious flirtatious one. At the musical heart of the opera is Caio, for whom Vivaldi writes some of the most intense and memorable music, which Lucia Cirillo navigates with impressive ease – on the one hand a volatile rage aria which brings down the curtain on act one, and then a remarkable sequence of accompanied recitative and aria in the next act, overheard by Tullia, in which Cirillo meltingly laments Cleonilla’s abandoning of Caio. Fasolis draws some icy responses from the strings, as though adding a third voice to Caio’s soliloquy and Tullia’s echoes in that recitative.
Michela Antenucci’s Tullia is guarded, projecting less forcefully than Ottone or Cleonilla though vocally precise, but eventually wins out when Cleonilla manages to deflect Ottone’s suspicions about her and Caio, and the emperor orders that the latter be united in marriage with Tullia. Ruairi Bowen brings some flair to the stern authority of Decio’s rather unvaried arias, dispensing advice to Ottone and reporting on troubles brewing in Rome. It’s an intriguing paradox that the bold characterisation of a Baroque operatic setting is sharpened and made more sympathetic in this muted and lyrical staging.
Curtis Rogers
Ottone in villa
Composer: Antonio Vivaldi
Libretto: Domenico Lalli
Cast and production staff:
Cleonilla – Carlotta Colombo; Ottone – Margherita Maria Sala; Caio Silio – Lucia Cirillo; Tullia – Michela Antenucci; Decio – Ruairi Bowen
Director and choreography – Giovanni Di Cicco; Coordination of choreography – Associazione Deos Dance Ensemble Opera Studio; Set Designer – Massimo Checchetto; Costume Designer – Carlos Tieppo; Lighting Designer – Andrea Benetello; Conductor – Diego Fasolis; La Fenice Orchestra
Teatro Malibran, Venice, Italy, Friday 20 March 2026
All photos © Michele Crosera