The first opera based on a historical incident, Poppea re-creates Roman emperor Nero's devilish spurning of his wife, Ottavia, for the tantalizing and ambitious Poppea. In its first production of Poppea since 1977, HGO uses the Wortham's intimate Cullen Theater to emulate a candlelit ballroom stage inside a Venetian palace. During the performance, houselights are barely dimmed.
Male singers sing soprano.
Supernatural beings pronounce judgments on fickle humans while resting in elaborately painted contraptions suspended from the ceiling. Some might find males with high-pitched voices a little amusing, but this show, with its unparalleled simplicity and stagecraft, offers a rare peek into the beginnings of opera. Marshall Pynkoski directs, while David Fallis, a specialist in the baroque idiom, conducts the HGO Orchestra. What this tale lacks in plot twists it makes up for in genuinely charged emotion among a vile cast of high-born Romans. Drusilla gives Ottone her robe as a disguise to do the nasty deed.