Power, desire, and musical mastery: Monteverdi’s final opera at the Royal Theater.

Following the success of *L’Orfeo* in 2023, Concerto Copenhagen and the Royal Danish Theatre are set to present another major work by Claudio Monteverdi: *L’incoronazione di Poppea* —*The Coronation of Poppea*—in a production led by Concerto Copenhagen and Lars Ulrik Mortensen.

A psychological drama—where music and power merge
While *L’Orfeo*, with its mythological universe, is considered the very birth of opera as a genre, *The Coronation of Poppea* is the first work to depict historical figures rather than mythological characters and gods. It is no longer morality and heroic deeds that triumph, but rather the immoral acts, ambitions, and desires of humanity. Based on the story of Emperor Nero and his mistress Poppea, Monteverdi unfolds a psychological drama where music and power merge in one of the Baroque era’s most radical and compelling operas.

Monteverdi composed this work as his final opera in 1643, at a time when opera had moved out of the royal courts and into the newly opened public opera houses in Venice. Competition for the audience’s favor was fierce, and the form of opera was evolving rapidly. The Coronation of Poppea was Monteverdi’s response: a work that, in both music and drama, demonstrates his superior command of timing, characterization, and emotional depth.

No two setups are exactly alike

Musically, the opera moves away from the rigid distinctions between recitatives and arias, toward a more vivid, dramatically fluid form. Monteverdi lets the characters breathe through the music; from the seductive lines of Nero and Poppea to the sharp outbursts of the rejected Ottavia, framed by a rich and colorful orchestration in which the Baroque orchestra not only accompanies but actively stages the drama.

The Coronation of Poppea is a work without a definitive score. Two very different manuscripts have survived, and every production requires artistic choices: which scenes to include or omit, which music to perform, how to arrange the instrumentation, and what dramatic weight to give each character. No two productions are alike. Yet, and perhaps precisely for that reason, The Coronation of Poppea is a work with striking modern resonance: a drama without heroes, where love, ambition, and cynicism drive the plot, and where Monteverdi, with a master’s musical finesse, lays bare both the beauty and the brutality of human relationships.