Deutsche Grammophon releases Monteverdi's L’Incoronazione di Poppea on DVD

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Returning to the opera house where she sang her sensational Cleopatra in Handel’s Giulio Cesare, Danielle performs the title role in Monteverdi’s great opera of lust and power, in Robert Carsen’s modern-dress staging. De Niese is perfectly cast as the beautiful and seductive Poppea who ruthlessly grabs power as Nero’s lover but, in this production, is doomed from the moment of her coronation at the end of the opera. De Niese’s performance is vocally and dramatically powerful, perfectly complemented by Alice Coote as Nero. The two are supported by an outstanding cast, together with period-performance star Emmanuelle Haïm conducting the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

“Wonderfully lucid and unflinching staging... the wonder of conductor Emmanuelle Haïm’s work here with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment is the way she illuminates the play of Monteverdi’s expressive vocal lines with the harmony beneath” – The Independent, London

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