Le Couronnement de Poppée

Wed, 7 May 2025

La Cité Bleue

La Cité Bleue Genève

Power: to achieve it, the courtesan Poppea stops at nothing. As Emperor Nero's mistress, she strives to remove all obstacles to her accession to the throne. At the cost of breaking with her lover Otto, commissioning the suicide of the philosopher Seneca and repudiating the empress Octavia, she achieved her goal: Poppaea married Nero. And what could have been a triumph of amorality becomes, through Monteverdi's music, a hymn to all-powerful desire, an exaltation of the human being trapped in his contradictions. The master's last opera is also the first masterpiece of its kind, with its modernity intact despite its four centuries, brought to life by a young troupe conducted by Leonardo García Alarcón.   PROGRAMME Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) Nero, or The Coronation of Poppea, opera in a prologue and three acts libretto by Giovanni Francesco Busenello   DISTRIBUTION Jasmin Delfs, soprano - Poppea Nicolò Balducci, countertenor - Nerone Victoire Bunel, soprano - Ottavia / Virtù Paul Figuier, countertenor - Ottone Ossian Huskinson, bass - Seneca / Console   Cappella Mediterranea Leonardo García Alarcón, conductor   Duration 3 hours, with an intermission   In cooperation with Cappella Mediterranea, ensemble in residence at La Cité Bleue Genève.