Agrippina (Met HD opera; George Frideric Handel)

A surprisingly ribald & ironic comedy of Agrippina scheming to make Nero the Emperor Nero, drawing on Tacitus & Suetonius (taking many liberties with characters, particularly Poppea/Ottone). I and the audience laughed regularly at the broad physical comedy. Spoilers: she succeeds.

This production sets the drama in a vaguely-1980s Manhattan (but with smartphones), and leans in to the comedy and sexual manipulation. The MILF empress Agrippina, having secretly learned her husband Emperor Claudius has drowned, without formally naming an heir (Claudius’s other children, particularly Britannicus, never come up), summons her son (from an earlier marriage) Nero. Nero, cross-played by Kate Lindsey, is a heavily-tattooed club rat, a coke fiend, something of a break-dancer (Lindsey is given gymnastic choreography, including an aria while planking, which is just plain showing off), and a sociopath who hungers for the throne to better sate his desires, including his Oedipal ones. (The cross-play is not as arbitrary as it seems: Handel wrote the role for castrati.) Agrippina reveals the truth, and sends him out into the streets to bribe the masses and show his philanthropy for the cameras. Simultaneously, she rushes to recruit Claudius’s two primary supporters (Narcissus & Pallas), both of whom lust after her, and promises each of them her exclusive affections should Nero ascend; meta-fictionally, she meets the second at the opera, where the pamphlet helps cover up a handjob she administers to seal the deal. (Fortunately, she brought hand sanitizer in her purse.)

The plot succeeds, and Nero is being acclaimed—when Claudius returns alive. He had been saved from drowning by a heroic officer, Ottone, and has decided to designate Ottone his successor. Agrippina’s scheme foiled, she lucks out when the guileless Ottone confides in her that he wishes only to marry the beautiful Poppea: who is the target of Ottone, Claudius and Nero. Agrippina seizes the opportunity of this love polygon, and tells the gullible Poppea that Ottone has betrayed her for the throne, and she should get revenge by telling the horny Claudius that Ottone was denying him her affections. Enraged, Poppea plays along. Claudius, played by the blinkered bear-like Matthew Rose (who plays the lecherous old man comedy-bits well, including the attempts at sexy poses), falls for it. Despite her success, Poppea is crushed by the betrayal of her love, ripping up old love letters and stuffing her face with a box of Valentine chocolates.

The next day, instead of anointing Ottone, degrades him, proclaiming him a traitor without further explanation. All and sundry desert him, Agrippina slapping him on her way out. Alone in his despair, Ottone gets the longest segment of the opera. Nero finally gets named the heir, and Agrippina appears to have won. To tidy up loose ends, she orders the two supporters to murder each other.

Drunk at a bar, Poppea laments Ottone’s betrayal, falling asleep. In an extended interlude, the barflies snap selfies with the drunk Poppea, and continue drinking and admiring the bartender’s juggling and dancing (to a harpsichord instead of a jazz pianist) when who should Ottone walk in and overhear her mumblings? He convinces her to hear him out, and Poppea realizes how Agrippina deceived her. Instead of unmasking Agrippina, she plots her own revenge, by telling both Claudius and Nero to come to her penthouse at the same time. She hides Nero in a closet (with Ottone in another—no wonder women need so many closets), and when Claudius comes, reveals she ‘really’ meant Nero was the one obstructing him, and as proof of how Nero was harassing her, pulls him out of the closet. Claudius is infuriated at Nero’s low morals, and expels him.

The two supporters, having decided that trying to murder each other is not that appealing after all, throw themselves on Claudius’s mercy, revealing the original plot to put Nero on the throne. Claudius summons everyone, and enquires into what exactly is going on. Agrippina persuades him her intentions were benign and preserved the throne for him in his absence, and he decrees that—as in any proper comedy—everyone will get what they want, and there will be a marriage, with Ottone and Poppea wedding while Nero will ascend the throne.

All’s well that ends well, happy music plays, and the curtain descends, as Claudius’s butler, who has killed time in between arranging arraignments by reading a copy of Tacitus, turns to the end and starts laughing. The End.

The comic ending, of course, is ironic, as any viewer in 1709, steeped in the classics like Tacitus & Suetonius, would be well aware, because this is actually a tragedy, a tragedy of how Claudius failed in the vital matter of the succession: far from having cleared everything up and ensured a happy ending, Claudius set the stage for disaster—Claudius & both supporters were likely murdered by Agrippina after he began considering a different heir than Nero, Nero would then murder Agrippina and become one of the worst Roman Emperors ever, which would dismay the noble Ottone who thought only of the empire’s good and the love of Poppea, and who would be banished by Nero (ultimately committing suicide after his own bid for emperorship fell through post-Nero), a divorce forced, and Poppea taken for his own, only to be beaten into miscarriage by Nero. Nero himself didn’t exactly die in his sleep, either. The slapstick and sexual comedy emphasizes this by the contrast; as they pursue their petty lusts and schemes, they set in motion disaster on a vast scale.

Compared to other later actions, it is striking how univocalic and straightforward the action is: every scene is dominated by the single voice of the character pursuing the action, and deceiving the other characters, often alternating between their spoken deceptive ‘dialogue’ and truthful monologue asides. Agrippina in particular always has a plan and is executing it, without a shred of remorse; it’s not so much that she’s evil as she is aimed solely at the goal of enthroning Nero, and nothing else enters into her amoral considerations (like Nero being a sociopath), as she dances to her own music with celebratory booze. (It is something of a uniquely female role: Agrippina is utterly invested in Nero, as she can have no more children; it’s harder to see a man quite the same, as they always have other options, and to be pursuing other intrinsic drives like conquest and prestige.)

Entertaining, funny, and beautiful, Agrippina is worth a watch.