Händel - Agrippina
Vlaamse Opera, Ghent, Sunday November 4 2012 Conductor: Paul McCreesh. Production: Mariame Clément. Sets: Julia Hansen. Costumes: Julia Hansen. Lighting: Bernd Purkrabek. Video: fettFilm. Agrippina: Ann Hallenberg. Nerone: José Maria Lo Monaco. Poppea: Elena Tsallagova. Ottone: Kristina Hammarström. Claudio: Umberto Chiummo: Pallante: João Fernandes. Narciso: José Lemos. Lesbo: Gevorg Grigoryan. Giunone: Marija Jokovic. Vlaamse Opera Orchestra. As I sheltered in a museum café from the cold and rain that made visiting Ghent this weekend more difficult than it should have been, the lady having soup at the next table explained that she no longer went to the opera there because instead of putting on shows people want to see, they force-feed them modern productions. Would she really not have enjoyed this ingenious, effective approach to Agrippina ? It was a bright, colourful, “dinky” staging (“So smart!” someone exclaimed to me, like one of Evelyn Waugh’s Bright Young People, befo...