Utah Opera fans will experience this season's most unique offering when the finest opera of the 17th century, "The Coronation of Pop-pea" by Claudio Monteverdi, is presented in the Capitol Theatre, beginning Saturday.
Stepping backward in time from the standard 19th century opera repertoire, Utah Opera Company joins with other opera houses throughout the world in celebrating the 400th anniversary of the inception of opera by staging this early masterpiece.
"The Coronation of Poppea" is based upon the story of Nero, emperor of the Roman Empire (yes, he of the legendary fiddle), who plots to rid himself of his wife Ottavia in order that he might make his mistress, Poppea, the empress of Rome. Themes of greed, betrayal, lust and political intrigue within the plot are likely to seem more modern than audiences might expect from an opera that premiered in 1647.
The music, too, is liable to be a surprise. Mental images of "stand-and-deliver" singing evaporate when one hears Monteverdi's intensely emotional score.
Tenor Matthew Lord, who portrays Nero, admits that the music surprised him, too. "When I was first approached about singing this role (at the Julliard Opera Center in New York) I wasn't immediately interested because it conjured up the thought of some stuffy singer holding his hands together and singing `early music.'
"Now it's my favorite role."
As an opera singer, Lord defies expectations as much as the music he sings. A muscular man with a shaven head and gold earring - and an outrageous sense of humor - Lord has a persona more fitting to a member of a motorcycle gang than an expert interpreter of Baroque opera. And he relishes the role of Nero. "As Nero, I have absolute power, with nothing to answer to. I do things for one simple reason - because I want to. The emperor is always right, never wrong. There are no boundaries.
"It's really not a love story, it's about absolute authority. You might say that Hitler was a modern-day Nero."
Opposing Nero's plan to crown Poppea is his wife Ottavia, portrayed by native Utah mezzo-soprano Lani Poulson, in her Utah Opera debut. By quirk of fate, Poulson is more well-known in opera houses throughout Europe than in her home state. A native of Tremonton, she graduated from the University of Utah, then accepted a Fullbright Fellowship to study at the Hochschule fur Musik in Stuttgart, Germany.
After winning prizes in major international competitions, Poulson began her European freelance career at the Badisches Staatstheater in Karlsruhe, Germany, and has since enjoyed a successful career at the major opera houses of Germany, the Netherlands, France, Aus-tria, Belgium and Switzerland, among others.
Poulson lives in Salt Lake City between European engagements (about half of the year, in disconnected segments) and has a core of local followers who know her from her popular annual solo recital on the Nova concert series.
For her, the opportunity to sing the role of Ottavia makes her Utah debut especially sweet. "It's a fabulous opera and a wonderful role," Poulson said.
"The libretto is very contemporary. It's a wonderful play, and the music is just ravishingly beautiful. I love the way the words are set and the way the scenes are put together."
Monteverdi's well-rounded musical characterization also wins high marks from this singer. "Even the smallest roles are multi-dimensional and interesting. And I love the colors of the different voices Monteverdi uses and the period instruments in the orchestra."
One of the interesting vocal colors to listen for is the countertenor role of Ottone, Poppea's jilted lover, sung by David Sabella. (A countertenor is a male singer who has trained his voice to sing in the alto range.)
The versatile Sabella has won several prestigious classical vocal competitions, including the Pava-rotti Competition in 1995, and is also starring in the smash hit Broadway revival of the musical "Chicago." Though he is enjoying the limelight of Broadway, he makes no secret of the fact that his first love is early music.
Unusual musical colors will also be heard from the orchestra pit, which has been raised for this production to keep the Baroque continuo instruments in close contact with the singers. The conductor and harpsichordist for the opera is Martin Pearlman, the founder and director of Boston Baroque, North America's oldest continuing period instrument orchestra and chorus. He has edited a new score for this production, based on two surviving fragments of 17th-century manuscripts.
He will be joined by an ensemble of early music specialists from throughout the United States and Canada who will play, in addition to two harpsichords, the Baroque violoncello, theorboes (long-necked lutes with extra bass strings), Baroque guitars and recorders. Members of the Utah Sym-phony string section will accompany the period instruments during fuller song and instrumental passages.
Singing the pivotal role of Poppea is Scottish-born soprano Judith Lovat in her Utah Opera debut. Her repertoire encompasses opera, concert and oratorio works, with recent appearances at the San Diego Opera, Boston Baroque, Boston Lyric Opera, Carnegie Hall and in numerous BBC broadcasts in the United Kingdom.
Others in the cast are soprano Nancy Allen Lundy (as Drusilla), basso Thomas Paul (Seneca), tenor David Cangelosi (Arnalta) and tenor Steven Tharp (Lucano). Members of the Utah Opera Ensemble also appear in featured roles.
Stage director for "Poppea" is Alexander Gelman of the University of Utah department of theater. In an essay on the work, he relates the challenge of staging a work in which the evil characters, Nero and Poppea, are ultimately triumphant. "Many literary and theatrical pieces of the 18th and 19th centuries let us off the hook. They present a moral outrage, resolved by a moral victory at the end." Yet in this work the answers are not so simple, leaving room for controversy.
Gelman also states, "The sublime love duet at the end of the opera is a celebration by the two most evil people on stage. I don't think there is any way to apologize for this unsettling victory or to exclude it - it's the absolute focus of the work.
"My hope is that `The Coronation of Poppea' will surprise many of you, as it has me, with the absolute glory of its music, the incredible sense of modernity in the story and the complexity of its conflict."
The opera is staged before an unusual set, designed by Pioneer Theatre Company's resident scenic designer George Maxwell, and built in the Utah Opera scenic studio. Symbolic rather than representational, it features a rich collage of timeless elements from Roman architecture and culture. Medieval costumes are part of the traditional staging of this opera and are the creation of Utah Opera's resident costume designer Susan Memmott Allred. Wigs and makeup are by Cynthia McCourt; guest lighting director is Harry Frener.
Summing up the efforts of all of these artists are the following words from conductor Martin Pearlman: "Let a powerful piece of drama speak for itself. There is nothing antiquarian about this opera.
"We read accounts by Monteverdi's contemporaries of how this rich music, which is constantly changing and filled with nuance, moved his audiences to laughter and to tears. A modern-day performance should allow a listener to experience the same powerful emotions in an immediate way.
"It is toward this goal that all our work is directed."