To take the place of the Empress of Rome! To achieve this, the courtesan Poppea stops at nothing. Mistress of the emperor Nero, she removes all obstacles on her way to the throne. At the cost of breaking up with her lover Ottone, ordering the suicide of the philosopher Seneca and repudiating the empress Octavia, she achieves her goal: Poppea marries 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 its contradictions. Monteverdi’s last opera is also the first masterpiece of the genre, extraordinarily modern despite its four centuries. This production first performed at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, it is as lively as the first day, carried by a youthful and committed cast guided by director Ted Huffman and the flamboyant Leonardo García Alarcón!

New production for Festival d’Aix-en-Provence 2022

In coproduction with Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía, Valencia, Opéra de Rennes, Opéra de Toulon and Oper Köln

Opera in a prologue and three acts to a libretto by Giovanni Francesco Busenello based on the annals of Tacitus, first performed in Venice in 1642-1643.

Venice version from 1650.

Performed in Italian with French and English surtitles.