How to take the place of the Empress of Rome? The courtesan Poppaea will stop at nothing to succeed. This mistress of Emperor Nero removes every obstacle that stands between her and the throne. At the cost of leaving her lover, Otho, ordering the suicide of the philosopher Seneca and banishing Empress Octavia, she finally achieves her objective: Poppaea marries Nero. Through Monteverdi’s music, what could have been nothing more than a triumph of immorality is elevated into a hymn of all-powerful desire, an exaltation of humanity in all its intractable contradictions. Monteverdi’s last opera is also the first masterpiece of the genre, still extraordinarily and enduringly modern after four centuries.

To end his trilogy on a high note, with Monteverdi performed and recorded at the Château de Versailles, Stéphane Fuget reunites his expressive, virtuosic soloists, bringing the drama of Poppaea and Nero to boiling point!

First part: 1h40

Intermission

Second part: 1h30

Opera in one prologue and three acts to a libretto by Giovanni Francesco Busenello after The Annals by Tacitus, premièred in Venice in 1642-1643.

Concert in Italian with no surtitles.