Monteverdi’s play of intrigue set in fascist Italy
Published: Friday, Mar 1st 2024, 09:40
العودة إلى البث المباشر
Stage director Christoph Marthaler is once again treading unusual paths at Theater Basel. In his production of the baroque opera "L'Incoronazione di Poppea", he transposes the action from ancient Rome to fascist Italy. The premiere is on Sunday.
Christoph Marthaler is the sneaky rogue among theater makers. When he stages operas, it can happen that the orchestra disappears from the pit after a third of the evening and never reappears, as was the case with Jacques Offenbach's "La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein" in 2010. Or that the orchestra mumbles the famous hunters' chorus into beer mugs without instruments, as in Carl Maria von Weber's "Der Freischütz" in 2022.
The space, i.e. the stage design, always plays a key role. The powerful, functional space of the current production is reminiscent of the open foyer of an office from the 1940s. In fact, it is a replica of the "Casa del Fascio" in Como, the fascist house that Marthaler's personal set designer Anna Viebrock meticulously copied and placed diagonally on the main stage of Theater Basel.
It is four days before the premiere and a public rehearsal with the orchestra is taking place. It is a small orchestra that provides a stark contrast to the stage and the figures on it from the shallow pit. The musicians of the baroque orchestra La Cetra, conducted by British baroque specialist Laurence Cummings, play on period instruments.
The inventor of the opera genre
These date from the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, when Claudio Monteverdi invented the genre of opera. With "L'incoronazone di Poppea" in 1642, when he was 75 years old, he created a thrilling musical intrigue that is considered one of the composer's most innovative works and was groundbreaking for the further development of opera.
The story is quickly told: Poppea, the mistress of the Roman tyrant Nero, wants to come to power, which she finally achieves thanks to many evil (and deadly) intrigues.
"Corpses pave their way," says in-house dramaturge Roman Reeger. And Marthaler's close dramaturgical collaborator Malte Ubenauf speaks of an "all-encompassing narrative of infiltration". Every character wants to get rid of the others. This must have appealed to Marthaler as a chronicler of human shortcomings.
Marthaler himself is not available during the rehearsal. He concentrates on what is happening on stage, takes photos with his cell phone and talks to set designer Viebrock.
So Ubenauf goes on to explain where the research for the directorial concept led: to the real-life School of the Dictators or "School of the Americas", where the USA prepared Latin American subversives for their missions. This was spatially transplanted to the "Casa del Fascio", which was given an ideological advocate in the form of the invented figure of Edda.
No flashy gags
What is surprising about the stage rehearsal, however, is that there are no big surprises. The wonderful baroque music can remain wonderful, especially as it is performed by extremely accomplished interpreters - including the famous Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter.
"It won't be funny," says dramaturge Ubenauf. It is the background details that point to Marthaler's signature style. While Poppea seduces Nero, prisoners in the gallery are led away in handcuffs, corpses wrapped in woollen blankets are dragged across the floor to the exit.
Marthaler did not have to invent this discrepancy between the lulling baroque music and the brutality of the content. It is a principle of the opera's content. At the end of his work, Monteverdi treats the inhuman couple Nero and Poppea to one of the most beautiful love duets in all of opera literature.
Christoph Marthaler's production of Claudio Monteverdi's "L'incoronazione di Poppea" premieres at Theater Basel on Sunday.
©كيستون/إسدا
Arabic 
English 
German 
French 
Spanish