OK, as I established in a previous blog post, this review sucked (the opera didn't, but the review did).

I didn't rewrite it, dealing with the fact that, yes, my students will someday be pleased to see that I need just as much revision as they do (only my problems are complex/compound/with frills sentences, not comma splices, but that's a different story). Oh, and I buried my lead. Where? The end of the story, of course. That's where leads often go to their graves.

The review of Handel's Agrippina, a lovely libretto about incest, infighting, regicide and the competition for a courtesan's hand, comes after the jump.

But you know what really kills me? I spent time writing headlines. After all, that's one thing copy editors usually do. And I think they're good. In all three writing workshops, NOT ONE WORD about my cleverness!

Oh, the humanity.

pic by Carol Posegg for the New York Times

10-17 NEA Writing Workshop Agrippina review

Art Brut
Agrippina, Shakespearean and swift
by Suzi Steffen

Like a good Molière, Shakespeare or Stoppard play, Handel’s Agrippina — written when he was 24 and revived in the U.S. in 1985 — combines drama, wordplay and farce to tell the story of a scheming, conniving Roman mother and her plans for imperial domination.

Or so the opera goes in its current incarnation at New York City Opera, where director Lillian Groag remounts the 2002 production with postmodern and hyper-referential sets, a short running time and ridiculous physical comedy that easily annoys but can also charm.

The plot, taken from Roman history and also the imagination of libretto writer Vicenzo Grimani, revolves around the machinations of Agrippina. She was the sister of Caligula and mother of Nero; some Roman sources describe her as a most despicable character, and Groag calls her “a serial murderer who would make Ted Bundy look like a kitten.” She married the Roman emperor Claudius in A.D. 49 and, according to Handel and Grimani’s source material, tried to have Nero (who was not Claudius’ son) placed on the throne when the emperor was rumored lost at sea. In the opera, she plots with two courtiers, both in love with her, to help her gain the imperial seat for Nero. And she can’t help but mess in the affairs of young and pretty Poppea, whom Nero, the sea commander Otho and Claudius himself would all like to enjoy.

Complications ensue, and though her intent is malicious, Agrippina — like a more successful Tartuffe — somehow ends up smelling like roses.

Audience members who arrive expecting elaborate displays might be disappointed by the spare yet complex design, an easily changed set of looming, roller-mounted wall fragments that shift among crumbling arcades, black columns and Pantheon-like coffers. Large heads of Roman emperors — plaster, surreal and cut off at the neck — litter the stage at various times, including a massive Julius Caesar sliced off at the nose “Ozymandias” manner. Low-hanging suprematist squares threaten the title character in her moments of despair (a muted mad scene), and Rothko-tinged squares of light mark scenes between Poppea and Otho. Servant-spies outfitted in dark Renaissance garb, Commedia masks and quarterstaves serve as scenery, stagehands and blunt political devices with their constant presence, fascist salutes and goosesteps.

An actor and playwright herself, Groag calls the performers “singing actors.” In acting terms, Heidi Stober shines as Poppea though her considerable vocal warmth slips in the upper register. João Fernandes’ Claudius seduces with his lovely baritone, and Nelly Miricioiu sings Agrippina with a roughness that fits the character’s menacing plans, but she often sounds forced. The countertenor David Walker, who plays Otho, begins with a rather weak affect; as time goes on, he displays both flexibility and range as an actor and entrances the audience with his pure, strong voice. Jennifer Rivera, a slight woman, sings Nero beautifully in the few arias she gets, in this version slashed to fit three hours. The fine Baroque-sized orchestra makes few missteps under the direction of Ransom Wilson.

Groag, a veteran Shakespearean director who claims that Agrippina couldn’t more claerly be a farce, lards the action with physical comedy. Some of it, like Claudius punching the faithful servant Lesbos or Nero engaging Claudius in an accidental clinch, comes off as painfully theatrical, yet most of the stage business elicits laughs. The director also enjoys using props — spoons in teacups, a martini shaker — as percussive instruments, which is delightful and distracting.

Surprisingly comedic and agile, Agrippina projects a sexy, speedy appeal that, along with reasonable prices, could easily attract a young audience to City Opera.
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