Portal:Opera/Selected article/21

L'incoronazione di Poppea (SV 308, The Coronation of Poppea) is an Italian baroque opera comprising a prologue and three acts, first performed in Venice during the 1642–43 carnival season. The music, attributed to Claudio Monteverdi, is a setting of a libretto by Giovanni Francesco Busenello. One of the first operas to use historical events and people rather than classical mythology, it adapts incidents from the writings of Tacitus, Suetonius and others to recount how Poppea, mistress of the Roman emperor Nerone (Nero), is able to achieve her ambition and be crowned empress. The opera was revived in Naples in 1651, but was then neglected until the rediscovery of the score in 1888, after which it became the subject of scholarly attention in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Since the 1960s the opera has been performed and recorded many times. In a departure from traditional literary morality it is the adulterous liaison of Poppea and Nerone which triumphs, although this victory is demonstrated by history to have been transitory and hollow. Moreover, in Busenello's version of the story all the major characters are morally compromised. Written when the genre of opera was only a few decades old, the music for L'incoronazione di Poppea has been praised for its originality, its melody, and for its reflection of the human attributes of its characters. The work helped to redefine the boundaries of theatrical music, and established Monteverdi as the leading musical dramatist of his time.