<<  -- 5 --  Roderic Dunnett    APOTHEOSIS OF THE MADRIGAL

Delphine Gillot's erotically-charged Poppea had the vocal edge on Cooper, and the greater variety : she too was at her most beguiling pianissimo : her prayerful 'tornerai?' and wan Juliet-like 'addio' as Nero (her Romeo) parts suggested real potential; Gillot moves and gestures well too; her post-coital dressing of Nero was genuinely, tinglingly erotic; and one always sensed beneath, as with Cooper's emperor, the viperish danger : there was something of Ruth Ellis about this Poppea.

Not all of William Relton's moves worked in the fairly constricted space -- some unnecessary onstage extras' moves in the central scene proved tiresome and distracting (with hard soles on an echoey floor; they might as well have been tapdancing); but he skilfully engineered Poppea to centre stage for her outrageous lie which sealed Seneca's fate; the mark of an intelligent director.

The most engaging voice of the leading foursome, however, was another Swede, Louise Reitberger, as Claudius's daughter and Nero's rejected wife, Ottavia : a beautifully rich, full-fledged voice, whom leading houses should start auditioning now. Her gift for engendering heartrending pauses and subtle cadencing made all the difference to our sympathy for this dignified 'desprezzata regina'. Vocally, a lovely performance.

Top marks, too, to the RAM's polished and sensitive period Baroque Orchestra, fluid and subtle (not least in Arnalta's lovely sleep-inducing music, or the beautifully paired archlutes for 'Let me stop up my feelings'); and despite a couple of rather curious key-lurches near the close, rising gracefully and easily to the required professional standards. Monteverdi's bracing and involving ritornelli were not just pithily, but sensitively, played under Laurence Cummings's enabling, well paced, wise, unobtrusive and intelligently varied direction.