Poppea wants to be empress, and the emperor wants Poppea.

Glen Asakawa/University of Colorado

By Peter Alexander

Nero and Poppea were the amoral power couple of 60s AD imperial Rome, and they didn’t care who got in their way. They are the subjects of Claudio Monteverdi’s final operatic masterpiece, The Coronation of Poppea, based on Roman history and written in 1653 for the carnival season in Venice.

The CU Eklund Opera Program production of The Coronation of Poppea will be presented Thursday–Sunday, April 23–26, in the Music Theater of the Imig Music Building (7:30 p.m. Thursday–Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday). Leigh Holman will direct, and the music director will be Nicholas Carthy.

The similarity between Nero and Poppea and the characters on a certain popular television series gave Holman an idea how to make the opera more vivid. “Coronation of Poppea is all about sex and politics and power, and if you’ve seen House of Cards, it’s the exact same thing,” she says. “It’s about a power hungry, vicious man and his power-hungry, vicious girlfriend.”

Read more at Boulder Weekly.

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Glen Asakawa/University of Colorado

The Coronation of Poppea by Claudio Monteverdi
CU Eklund Opera Program
Leigh Holman director, Nicholas Carthy, music director

7:30 p.m. Thursday–Saturday, April 23–25 and 2 p.m. Sunday, April 26
Music Theater, Imig Music Building
Tickets here or call: 303-492-8008.