Joyce DiDonato leads the Met premiere of this Baroque black comedy, which finds fresh political charge with Sir David McVicar’s modern update.
In the Met’s first-ever performances of Agrippina, Handel’s satire of sex and power politics, Sir David McVicar’s provocative staging evokes a scandalous world in which the Roman Empire never fell but simply kept going right up to the present. Holding a distorted mirror to contemporary society (as Handel did when he staged this opera), the production presents the corrupt intrigues of the political classes, including the power-hungry title empress (Joyce DiDonato), a scheming seductress (Brenda Rae), a feckless teenager (Kate Lindsey), an ambitious officer (Iestyn Davies) and the emperor Claudius (Matthew Rose), on whose vacated throne Agrippina is determined to install her son. Renowned for his interpretations of the Baroque repertoire, Harry Bicket (who thrilled Hop audiences with last year’s Semele) conducts.