SPRING PRODUCTION

Today we have been given our roles for the spring productions. Our school puts together four different shortened versions of operas which then are divided between four different directors and pianist.

I have been given the role of Poppea in "L'incoronazione di Poppea" by Claudio Monteverdi. The music was first performed in 1643!!! One of the first operas to use historical events and people, meaning it's old music about ancient people!!!!

It is extremely beautiful music.

And we will be performing it in combination with Claude Debussy’s Pelleas & Melisande, meaning they will be intertwined somehow. Extremely beautiful modern music intertwined with extremely beautiful ancient music. 

Claudio and Claude...<3

Exciting!!!

I am reading about it already. There is in fact no actual original copy of  Monteverdi’s composition which is regarded as his finest work and final work as he died the same year it was first performed.There are a lot of different version and rewrites, the only surviving copies are two versions from 1650 that are largely different from each other (according to wikipedia). Imagine, it was written 360 years ago…the possibilities!

We don’t know much yet other than this. 

I have no idea what time or setting our director will place them in. Only thing I know is that our director is crazy fun to work with, I worked with her last year in Il Barbiere de Siviglia by Rossini, so anything can happen. 

Of course I’m fantasizing about corsets and big beautiful gowns, but also some sort of reality in our music and story, it’s a lot of music for very small phrases, and a lot of beauty and passion in both operas.

I can’t waaaaaaaaaait!!!!!

  

                      Here is a 16th century painting of Poppea.                 And here, me. 

                                       

                                  Because my blog doesn't contain enough pictures of me...

xx Poppea aka Erika Grace ;-)

P.S! The other three productions are:
"Xerxes" by Handel, "Orfeo ed Euridice" by Gluck and "L'elisir  D'amore" by Donizetti.