About the production

The beginning of the 17th century was marked by turbulent changes in musical life which, at the dawn of the Baroque era, showed themselves in a stylistic shift from the stile antico of the High Renaissance to a new, modern musical practice generated by composers with new ideas. Among the creators of the so-called musical modernism of the early Baroque stood two names of special importance for this festival: Claudio Monteverdi and Salamone Rossi (Claudio Monteverdi, 1567–1643; Salamone Rossi, 1570–1630). Both artists worked at the same time at the court of their patrons, the Gonzaga family, in Mantua, creating under the influence of new ideas, in the context of the new style and the new aesthetics of the Baroque. Accordingly, Monteverdi’s musical ideas developed in parallel with the aims of the new style embodied in the newborn Baroque music-theatre genre, opera. The premiere of Monteverdi’s first opera, the dramma per musica L’Orfeo, took place in Mantua in 1607, and more than forty years later, in 1643, an even more Baroque opera by the composer appeared on stage: L’incoronazione di Poppea.

The work has an appealing and attractive subject from Roman times: the emperor Nero who, although married to Octavia, is seduced and bewitched by his mistress Poppea and manages to marry her. The timeless features of the plot can still be understood today – the desire for power, passion, love, betrayal, jealousy, greed, and Poppea’s mad ambition to put a crown on her head. Sadly, no one manages to turn the protagonists, the emperor Nero and Poppea, away from their passionate and twisted plan. Poppea, the eternal femme fatale, uses her charms to seduce Nero, but her eroticism serves above all to gain high social standing and extravagance of every kind.

The closing of the second edition of the International Festival Rossi Fest, on 28 January 2019, was crowned by a performance of this very opera, Claudio Monteverdi’s grandiose L’incoronazione di Poppea, on the Raša Plaović Stage, starting at 8:30 PM. Directed by Aleksandar Nikolić and led musically by maestro Alberto Veronezi, the opera won the audience over with its ever-relevant subject. The main roles were sung by soloists of the Barock Vokal ensemble from Mainz, led by Prof. Claudia Eder, together with the dance ensemble Transition Dance Company of the Institute for Artistic Dance in Belgrade (choreographer Aleksandar Ilić) and an orchestra of members of the New Trinity Baroque ensemble, led by its artistic director Predrag Gosta, who prepared the orchestra for this opera production.