An opera which hasn’t been heard since its premiere in 1708 comes back to life at Barber Institute this week, and Andrew Kirkman, the Barber professor who will be conducting the performances, tells me how he has been gearing up for the event.
“We went to Northern France, a part of the world I really love, and where for years I’ve been studying music from the later Middle Ages in the great collegiate church (now Cathedral) of Saint-Omer. It’s a lovely area with lots of natural beauty: a great place to enjoy some time with my family and contemplate the big project to come!”
And this is a big project indeed, resurrecting the work of Nicola Porpora, one of Handel’s greatest rivals in the treacherous world of baroque opera. Andrew describes how the idea came about.
“Right from when I first decided to come to Birmingham as Barber professor I wanted my first Barber opera to be by Porpora. When Anthony Lewis put on his first Handel operas in the late Fifties and early Sixties, Handel was largely unknown as an opera composer. It seemed fitting that, in the second half-century of the Barber Opera’s history, we started to showcase the work of Handel’s great rival.
“I asked the Porpora expert Holger Schmitt-Hallenberg if he had a particular suggestion. He had just edited L’Agrippina and pointed out to me that – alone of Porpora’s surviving operas – this had not been performed at all in modern times. I got hold of a score and was immediately captivated by the wonderful music and vivid evocation of drama.”
The drama here involves the power-politics of the early Roman empire and a matriarch scheming at their heart. Today’s soap-operas have nothing to compare with the lurid derring-do of the early 18th-century’s baroque theatricalities. Andrew responds to my perhaps cynical question wondering why the opera has remained unperformed since its premiere in 1708.
“L’Agrippina was written for a grand private performance for the name-day of the King of Naples (the city where Porpora was born, and returned to die); so it was never part of a commercial theatre set-up, with no run of performances, let alone revivals.
“It graced a grand occasion and was then consigned to the library until Holger edited it and we revived it. The result is a fabulous discovery for us: the opera is a jewel box of gorgeous melodies, and delicious comedy and pathos rolled into one. Written when Porpora was only 22, it’s definitely young man’s music, full of sparkle and verve, that will carry modern audiences along on a quick-fire stream of fabulous numbers.”
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Many years after the composition and performance of L’Agrippina, impresarios created a feud between Porpora and Handel, as Andrew explains.
“The rivalry between Handel and Porpora came much later, in the 1730s, when Porpora was brought into the London scene to spearhead a rival opera troupe to Handel’s. I think it’s fair to say that each inspired the other to ever greater heights of invention, but it all ended badly, since within just a few years both opera houses went bankrupt and Porpora left the city.”
What does Porpora’s opera offer the audience of over three centuries later?
“As you’d expect from a tale based in ancient Rome, L’Agrippina is full of political intrigue and dark emotions; but it also has a huge comic element, driven by the two servants Planco and Armilla. The servants offer an earthy and often hilarious take on situations far removed from the grand and lofty stances of the noble figures in the plot. The result is an intoxicating mix of musical and dramatic characterisation.
“Another detail is that this opera was composed before the standard recitative-aria pattern of later opera seria was solidified. So while it does largely comprise recits and arias, they are very varied in length and approach, and are leavened by lots of ensembles and ritornellos for orchestra. Thus the pace is a lot more varied and fleet-footed than one might expect from Baroque opera.”
Andrew then lets me in a little to the casting process, before going on to describing the orchestral colours,
“I sent out a call to all the agents and music colleges, and before long was inundated with requests for auditions. We heard about 50 singers last summer, of an astonishing standard: I think the resulting casting is wonderful, with each singer/ actor ideally suited to the role they are portraying.
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“The orchestra is strings, archlute and harpsichord, but there’s no shortage of brilliant colour and characterisation in the writing! Porpora was a master of texture as well as melody, and the whole will be a feast for audiences to enjoy, embracing the whole gamut from pathos to rage to betrayal to young love to down-to-earth slapstick.”
And Andrew concludes by describing the visual impact of this first production of L’Agrippina since 1708.
“One new departure for this production is that our ‘sets’ largely comprise multi-media projections – both on the physical sets and on the singers themselves – designed by the brilliant young Bulgarian multi-media designer Momchil Alexiev. This approach has given huge scope for characterisation of the changing moods and emotions of the plot, adding to the absorbing nature of what we are sure will be a remarkable series of events, and a new milestone in the distinguished history of the Barber Opera.”
- Porpora’s L’Agrippina is performed at the Barber Institute tonight (Thursday) 7-10pm, Saturday 7-10pm and Sunday (3-6pm). Details on 0121-414 7333.