With this edition of Claudio Monteverdi’s opera L’incoronazione di Poppea, created at the University of North Texas, this operatic classic is now available in a form very close to the original, largely based on Francesco Cavalli’s performance of 1652.
Even 450 years after the birth of the composer Claudio Monteverdi, his opera L’incoronazione di Poppea remains one of the greatest puzzles in the history of music. The source material is confusing – we have almost no information about the original version, performed by Monteverdi in 1643, just copies for later performances given by other musicians – and the plot and portrayal of the characters are so ambiguous that it seems simply impossible to established a unified message for the opera. But it is perhaps precisely these difficulties which constitute the charm of this opera for present-day opera audiences, and ensure that a performance of L’incoronazione di Poppea is always exciting and lively.
The – apparent? – triumph of immorality at the end of the opera, and the difficulty of finding a thoroughly sympathetic figure in the opera with whom we can identify have led to endless discussions. But neither identifying its context in the intellectual world of 17th century Venice, nor tracing the classical sources on which the librettist Gian Francesco Busenello based the plot, nor the investigation of ever-new concepts which may have formed the basis of the opera (from republicanism to the portrayal of courtly grace) have yielded uncontroversial results. What this means, however, is that the opera is open to many different interpretative possibilities, and that ultimately it has a quality to celebrate which seems to be profoundly human: the inadequacy of the human character. And so L’incoronazione di Poppea is still able to captivate audiences today, as it portrays human life with great truthfulness.
The challenging source material can also be tremendously fruitful for the purposes of modern performance, as it allows for different approaches to the work. Monteverdi’s original score for the performance in 1643 has not survived; but two manuscript scores from the 1650s have survived which present the work from very different perspectives. One of these, created in Naples and still preserved there, was probably made as a record of a performance given there in 1651. It contains a considerable number of passages which were clearly not by Monteverdi, but it seems to reproduce a version which the original librettist was involved in creating. In this, some of the characters, particularly the Empress, who is fearful about her position, and Ottavia, the deceived wife, are portrayed in much greater detail, so that the opera in this version places the psychological aspect even further to the fore. However, the score, which is purely a copyist’s copy only intended for a library, allows very few conclusions to be drawn about performance practice in general or specific performances of L’incoronazione di Poppea in particular.
It is a different matter with the score created in Venice which is still preserved there today. It comes from the collection of the composer and opera promoter Francesco Cavalli, who created it together with his wife and a number of colleagues in the years 1650 to 1652. This is a true production score. Evidently Cavalli himself intended to perform the work of his colleague and teacher Monteverdi, presumably as a replacement for one of his own operas which had not come to fruition as difficulties were encountered in the production process; the work in question may have been La Calisto. Even if it also contains a few passages which were probably written by Cavalli or other associates, this score seems to be considerably closer to Monteverdi’s original version. In particular, it contains numerous shorter and longer references to performance practice conditions, and conveys a picture of Venetian Baroque opera which could hardly be more vivid, varied or enthusiastic.
From these two sources, which represent two completely different versions and differ so fundamentally from each other in their character, it was considered fitting to produce an Urtext edition for Bärenreiter which fulfils all the requirements of both performance practice and research. This work took place as part of an unusual project at the University of North Texas. 19 students from courses in music history, music theory, voice and performance produced a music text, together with the relevant critical apparatus and accompanying texts, over the course of several classes and lectures, following strict scholarly criteria, and put this to the practical test in a much-acclaimed performance given by UNT Opera and Early Music. The edition of the libretto is by Nicola Badolato, a renowned expert at the University of Bologna.
What does this new edition of L’incoronazione di Poppea now offer? Firstly, it is based on the latest research regarding evaluation of the sources, performance practice and the historical context. In the last few years many new discoveries have been made in these areas which have been implemented for the first time in this edition. The main part of the edition contains the opera, as it might have been staged in 1652 by Cavalli, in a version which is as close to Monteverdi’s original as possible and which contains all the well-known highlights of the opera. As well as this, all the additional passages which are found in the sources are included in an Appendix, enabling a compilation of new variants of the opera and a comparison of all parts. A detailed introduction comments on questions about the sources and interpretation, and an extensive critical apparatus makes possible a scholarly consideration of the work down to the smallest details. The libretto, edited according to current criteria, contains all the texts as well as those in the Appendices, and is translated into German and English to ensure a detailed understanding of the opera.
Probably the most striking innovation of our edition is in the area of Monteverdi’s vivid and realistic recitatives. Here the editors have succeeded for the first time in rendering the dialogues as Monteverdi might have originally intended: lively, quick-witted, with characters who interrupt or talk across each other depending on the dramatic situation. It has been difficult to arrive at an appropriate interpretation of the work until now because of the versions and arrangements which the many copies of the original source incorporated; the dialogue appeared with long pauses and was slowed down. Our work, based on the latest discoveries, has now led to a reconstruction which is both exciting and illuminating, and will make a considerable contribution to making the opera even more vivid, witty and human than has previously been the case.
Hendrik Schulze
(translation: Elizabeth Robinson)
(from [t]akte 2/2016)