I won’t attempt a plot summary here—it’s easily obtainable—except to say that there is a through-line of sorts. That is the wish of Agrippina, wife of the Emperor Claudio (Claudius), to see her son (by a former marriage), Nerone (Nero), guaranteed the imperial succession. She is amoral in her pursuit of this goal, sexual manipulation and even a contract for murder being among the perfectly acceptable means to the end. The other principal characters are the Roman general Ottone and his beloved Poppea, to whose coronation in Monteverdi’s earlier opera this one can be considered a prequel. After many complications, things work out as we know they will: Nerone will get the throne, Ottone and Poppea will get each other, and all will rejoice. In the original, Giunone (Juno) descends to bless the union, and there’s a concluding ballet. Just as with the tale of Deidamia, Ulysses, and Achilles, these classical story lines and characters were familiar to settecento audiences many times over, both from their literary sources and other operatic settings, and a great deal of the enjoyment lay in discovering what variation was being sounded this time around, to what new and borrowed music, and from which star singers’ throats.

Given what I’m commonly compelled to write about directors, it’s a relief to me personally that I am able to call attention to what I think is a superbly well-directed production in this problem-filled genre. First, though, if only to ensure us of a lieto fine, I must comment on the other one. Robert Carsen gives his production at the Theater an der Wien a contemporary setting, so that for starters we have the contradiction in tone between eye and ear that is endemic to all such updatings, but is especially stark in early-period works: whereas on the musical side, strenuous efforts are made to pull us back by the ear to the composer’s time, everything in the production forces the eye away from it. From the opening statement of the overture, we can hear that in one sense the reading by Hengelbrock and his band meshes with the production: it is from the fierce school of Handel playing, sharply attacked and accented, with the vibratoless  lower strings drilling into crescendos on sustained notes and the violins’ upward sweeps of thirty-seconds keen and angular. But the more period-conformative the instruments and their playing, the more incompatible they are with the opening spectacle of Agrippina at her desk in modern office mufti (flashing some leather) and hairdo, signing documents presented to her by dark-suited minions. So it is immediately established that on the fundamental sensory level, the production is divided against itself. Its potential integrity is deliberately violated, and we are instructed to accept this violation as a condition for moving forward.

In the first short scenes, this festival of dueling worlds—one for ear, the other for eye—is quickly taken to the extremes the director loves to test. The action starts with an informational recitative, in which Agrippina shares with her son the news that Claudio has been lost at sea while returning from a military expedition. She advises Nerone to go out among the populace, show empathy with them and dispense coins to the poor, to prepare the way for his ascension. In the first dal segno aria, Nerone promises to follow her advice and professes his adoration to her. Now Agrippina summons in succession two love-besotted (or sexually intoxicated) followers, Pallante and Narciso. To each, she confides the news of Claudio’s death; to each she issues instructions to stir up enthusiasm for Nerone among the people and the army; and to each she vows that he will reign with her when Nerone is declared. Each expresses excitement and fidelity in a da capo aria, and hastens forth to do her bidding.