Opera Review: She Just Can't Wait to Be Queen

Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble mounts L'Incoronazione di Poppea
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Passion in the palace: Nerone (Alison Taylor Cheeseman, left) macks on Poppea (Greer Davis) in
Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble's L'Incoronazione di Poppea. 
Photo by Brian Long © 2013 Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble.

The Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble took a major chance with this year's Summer Repertoire Project, pushing into the deep waters of Renaissance opera with its first production of Claudio Monteverdi's 1642 masterpiece L'Incoronazione di Poppea. Although it is the last of Monteverdi's works for the Venetian stage, Poppea is a milestone opera in that it was the first opera to portray actual historical figures on the stage instead of mythological or allegorical figures.