Coronation Of Poppea (bluray)

ORCHESTRA OF THE NORWEGIAN NATIONAL OPERA; DE MARCHI; CHRISTENSEN; LASZCZKOWSKI; MEAD; SOLBERG; BARDON

I’ve seen hundreds of opera videos and never one more riveting.
Soprano Birgitte Christensen, a lush-voiced, attractive, buxom Poppea, sings well…Jacek Laszczkowski commands the stage as a demented, sadistic Nerone; his body language and his virtuoso “soprano countertenor,” with its discomfiting, hooty tone, vividly convey the emperor’s instability and lunacy. Mezzo-soprano Patricia Bardon as Ottavia and contralto Tone Kruse as Nutrice are vocally and visually superb. Nearly as outstanding are countertenor Tim Mead (Ottone), sopranos Marita Sølberg (Virtù, Drusilla) and Ina Kringlebotn (Fortuna), bass Giovanni Battista Parodi (Seneca) and tenors Emiliano Gonzalez-Toro (Arnalta), Magnus Staveland (First Soldier, Lucano) and David Fielder (Second Soldier, Valetto). © 2012 Opera News

Price: $37.98