Arts & Events

Opera Theater Unlimited is a young company, having produced till now only Benjamin Britten’s Turn of the Screw, which ran last September at San Francisco’s Exit Theatre on Eddy Street. Now they have produced a lively, well sung, exquisitely acted L’Incoronazione di Poppea by Claudio Monteverdi, which was offered Friday-Saturday, July 15-16, at Exit Theatre.  

Opera Theater Unlimited’s Artistic Director Sarah Young is committed to producing opera in small venues where audiences can experience opera up front and on an intimate basis. Exit Theatre, which is also home base for Black Box Baroque Opera, is an ideal venue for such small-scale productions. Vocally, there was nothing small-scale in this production of L’Incoronazione di Poppea (The Coronation of Poppea). For the most part, the singers were all well-trained musicians with excellent vocal technique and plenty of power. Many of them are graduates or ongoing graduate students at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.  

Monteverdi’s Poppea was this great composer’s last opera, and though it premiered in Venice in 1642 and tells a sordid tale of Roman Emperor Nero’s besotted infatuation with the courtesan Poppea, whom he marries and crowns Empress after divorcing and banishing his aristocratic wife Ottava, L’Incoronazione di Poppea is an astonishingly modern opera in both plot and musical complexity. Much of the appeal of Monteverdi’s Poppea hinges on the performance of the singer portraying Poppea. Back in 1975 I had the privilege of hearing the great mezzo-soprano Tatiana Troyanos sing Poppea at San Francisco Opera with tenor Eric Tappy as Nerone (Nero). Troyanos was sensational as Poppea! Her voice was lush, tonally rich, and sensuous. Troyanos caressed her vocal duets with Nerone without needing to overact the physical caresses she offers her lover. 

Alas, however, this was not the case with Opera Theater Unlimited’s Poppea, soprano Danielle Cheiken. In a cast that was largely superb vocally, Danielle Cheiken was the one exception. I found her voice strident and often shrill. Her acting, moreover, was almost embarrassingly over the top. Unable to convey her caresses vocally, Cheiken was literally all over Nerone physically, even crawling barefooted toward him in a negligee across the entire width of the stage to implore her imperial lover to linger with her instead of departing to attend to affairs of the Empire. When Cheiken was not wrapping herself around Nerone’s body, she often resorted to caressing her own body. As I said, it was embarrassingly over the top. 

What made this production work, however, was the excellence of all the other singers, a good job of stage direction by Sarah Young, and fine instrumental work by four musicians under the leadership of conductor Edward Hong. The four instrumentalists were Julija Zibrat on first violin, Azat Fishyan on second violin, James Jaffe on cello, and Paul Dab on keyboard continuo. In the live acoustic space of Exit Theatre’s intimate venue, these four musicians produced a lush sound that almost made one think a full-scale Baroque orchestra was playing. 

In the role of Nerone, mezzo-soprano Marissa Simmons was outstanding. Her vocal technique was flawless, as was her diction in Italian. Whether billing and cooing with Poppea or angrily reacting to the sententious nostrums of the Stoic philosopher Seneca, Marissa Simmons’ portrayal of Nerone was spot-on. Having recently obtained her Master of Music degree from SF Conservatory of Music, where she studied with Catherine Cook, Marissa Simmons seems poised to have a fine career in professional opera. Also excellent in a trousers-role was mezzo-soprano Ellen Presley as Ottone, the former lover of Poppea who returns from abroad at the outset of the opera only to find Poppea shacked up with Emperor Nero. Whether conveying Ottone’s anger and dismay at Poppea’s betrayal or conveying Ottone’s quick rebound to settle for the charms of Drusilla, Ellen Presley sang impressively and acted convincingly. Soprano Sara Hagenbuch was a delightful Drusilla, ever patient in her love for Ottone, for whom she offers her life in falsely confessing to having tried to kill Poppea when it was in fact Ottone who did so, acting on the orders (and threats to his own life) from Nerone’s neglected wife Ottavia. In the role of Ottavia, soprano Jill Morgan Brenner was sensational. Her poignant farewell aria when banished by Nerone, “Addio Roma, addio patria, addio amici,” was a vocal highlight of the opera.  

Baritone Bruce Wiatrack was adequate as Seneca, though perhaps this role is better allocated to a stentorian bass. Wiatrack succeded, however, in suggesting the gravitas of this Stoic philosopher but also the specious quality of his maxims and flattery. Among this production’s several cuts in the score, particularly glaring was the omission of the male chorus of Seneca’s disciples who try to persuade their mentor not to commit suicide when ordered to do so by Nerone. The “Non morire, Seneca, Non!” chorus is a fine, dramatic piece of music, and it was sorely missed here. In the role of Arnalta, Poppea’s nurse or lady-in-waiting, soprano Melissa Costa was excellent. Arnalta is a salty, Mama Roma sort of woman, full of brim and vinegar. She cautions Poppea about the dangers of love, warns of snakes lurking in the grass, and excoriates her mistress as a crazy woman when Poppea won’t listen to her warnings. But Arnalta also sings a lovely, tender lullaby to Poppea when her mistress takes a nap on-stage in Act II. Near the opera’s end, when it is clear that Poppea will be crowned as Empress, Arnalta gloats that now she herself will be treated as a lady, flattered by everyone seeking favors from the new Empress, and she admits that while knowing it’s all bullshit (as the supertitles put it), she’ll absolutely revel in her newly won rise in social station. Singing this role in a nasal but low register of her soprano voice, Melissa Costa was a totally convincing Arnalta. Finally, kudos are in store for two young sopranos, Maggie Manire and Katie Nix, who performed several roles each in this production. Whether portraying Nerone’s bodyguards, Nerone’s drinking buddy Lucano, or various gods and goddesses, Manire and Nix were vocally impressive and dramatically expressive. One last regret I have, however, is that in this production the final love-duet between Nerone and Poppea, the immortal “Pur ti muro, pur ti godo,” was not nearly as sublimely sensuous as it should be. Instead of situating this duet, which closes the opera, in the imperial bed, (where it was staged by SF Opera in 1975), director Sarah Young had her two principals walk around each other at a distance on a bare stage, looking like dazed zombies instead of besotted lovers gloating in their supreme moment of narcissistic glory.