Irish Youth Opera Irish Youth Opera PRESENTING THE FUTURE HANDEL Irish Youth Opera — 1 — Irish Youth Opera Irish Youth Opera PRESENTING THE FUTURE Irish An opera in three Youthacts by GF Handel Libretto by Cardinal Vincenzo Grimani English translation byOpera Amanda Holden A co-production with Northern Ireland Opera in association with the Irish Chamber Orchestra and the Lime Tree Theatre Limerick. Lime Tree Theatre, Limerick Tuesday 8 September 2015 Black Box Theatre, Galway Thursday 10 September 2015 O’Reilly Theatre, Dublin Saturday 12 & Sunday 13 September 2015 The Market Place Theatre, Armagh Saturday 19 September 2015 Patron: Michael D Higgins, President of Ireland First performed in Venice on 26th December 1709 IYO Edition © 2015 — 2 — — 3 — Agrippina identify him as a glorious conqueror in the best (or the deliberations, but she was only allowed to do this from worst) Roman tradition. behind a curtain so that she could not be seen. Mary Beard Agrippina, however, was more than a match for this Predictably enough Nero soon tried to escape his mother’s Agrippina’s main claim to fame is now her concoction of marriage. The emperor had just had his third wife, chameleon. Her main aim, once married, was to push grip (and possibly also, so ancient rumours went, her poisoned mushrooms. It was with this potentially fatal Messalina, put to death, after a particularly flagrant the claims of her son Nero to be Claudius’ successor. He incestuous embrace). One major cause of friction was recipe that she tried to do away with her husband, the display of adultery (she had actually gone through a lavish was adopted by Claudius, consistently promoted above other women and in particular, Nero’s infatuation with elderly emperor Claudius. Rumours had reached her in mock-marriage ceremony with her lover). Agrippina must Claudius’ natural son, Britannicus (named after the Poppaea, who was then married to a man called Otho, 54 AD that Claudius was considering divorce, so – it was have looked a relatively safe choice. Her second husband newly conquered province), and married off to Claudius’ one of Nero’s friends who would himself become emperor said – she decided to strike first, with a draft of poison had recently died, so there was no divorce to be arranged – daughter, Octavia. He was, in short, being groomed for for a few brief months in the civil wars that followed sprinkled on his favourite food. But in the dysfunctional and she was, after all, already part of the firm. Rather too the throne. Agrippina’s motives in murdering her husband Nero’s death in 68 AD. Different versions of the affair world of the Roman imperial family, much so, in the eyes of some. Weighty were largely her fears for Nero: if she were to lose her are told: some ancient writers suggest that Nero stole his even murder did not go smoothly: speeches in the senate had to be hastily hold on Claudius, then Nero’s chances of succession were friend’s wife; others think that Nero found Poppaea first Claudius’ age, drunkenness or sluggish scripted, justifying the awkward fact finished. and merely ‘parked’ her with Otho until he could divorce digestion softened the effects of the that Claudius was actually Agrippina’s Octavia. venom, and he had to be finished off uncle, the brother of her father Her plan worked. Nero was neatly manoeuvred into power by a tame doctor. The feather that Germanicus. This made it an irregular in 54 AD, aged seventeen. According to many accounts, The signs of Agrippina’s fall from grace were at first subtle. tickled the old man’s throat to help union, even by Roman standards. whatever the lurid excesses of his final years, the first Nero engineered the dismissal of one of her greatest allies him vomit had itself been coated in years of the reign were rosy – at least in the sense that at court, the ex-slave bureaucrat Pallas – who almost poison. But the imperial ménage turned out to government and political business appeared to proceed ten years earlier had been one of those who persuaded be irregular in other ways too. Claudius with all due propriety, in the traditions established by Claudius to choose Agrippina out of the possible Agrippina was probably the best himself was a contradictory figure. Augustus. This may have had more to do with the efforts of candidates for marriage. But it did not stop there. By 59 connected woman that the Roman Limping and stuttering, and more Nero’s advisers than the instincts of Nero himself. Seneca – AD, Nero had made up his mind to have her killed. It was world ever saw and a key figure in the interested in scholarly research than in Stoic philosopher, playwright and usurer – was one of the another of those bungled murders. One ingenious scheme first imperial dynasty at Rome. She the cut-and-thrust of politics, he had powers behind the throne. So too (and sometimes more in was to send her out to sea in a collapsible boat, and to was grand-daughter of Augustus, the come to the throne only when the army front of the throne than behind) was Agrippina. pass off her drowning as a tragic accident – which might founder of the Roman empire; sister had to find a candidate quickly after have worked, had she not managed to swim ashore. In the of the mad emperor Caligula, killed the murder of Caligula (the story was No woman ever enjoyed such semi-official, public end, Nero had to resort to more conventional means. He in a palace coup in 41AD; wife of his that he was discovered hiding behind prominence in this period of the Roman empire as she did. sent some thugs from the navy to do the job properly: she successor, Claudius; and, by her first husband, the mother a curtain in the palace and was hailed as emperor on the In fact, on some of the coins of the early years of the reign, is said to have died directing the assassin’s sword at her of Nero, whose reign brought the dynasty to a particularly spot). Once emperor, he took considerable trouble to re- Agrippina’s head appears side by side with, or facing, her stomach, telling him to strike the womb that bore Nero. colourful, or disgraceful, end. invent himself, carefully remaking his image. He proved son, almost as if to suggest that they were co-rulers. She tough (not to say murderous) to the aristocracy. But pride is also supposed to have made her views on policy matters How much of this extraordinary story of Agrippina’s It was these blue-blooded connections that made her an of place went to the launch of a successful invasion of well known, and was apparently not beyond attempting life is ‘true’ is now hard to assess – and the answer very attractive wife for Claudius in 49 AD – though Roman Britain. How much of the fighting Claudius actually saw to take her place on the imperial dais next to her son and much depends on what we mean by ‘true’. All the lurid historians mutter also about her dangerously seductive is a moot point; he seems to have turned up (like many to give audience to visiting ambassadors. There were, details are certainly recounted by one or other of our main charms, as well as about in-fighting among the palace leaders since) only in the final stages to announce ‘mission however, limits: the senate would be summoned to meet sources for the reigns of Claudius and Nero: the chatty advisers, each backing rival candidates for the royal accomplished’. But, all the same, the campaign served to in the palace, so that Agrippina could listen to their biographer Suetonius, the dyspeptic political analyst — 4 — — 5 — Tacitus or the third-century historian Cassius Dio. But it Yet the opera is cleverer in its manipulation of the ancient seems very likely that plenty of unsubstantiated gossip world than these ‘mistakes’ might imply. What is on show and innuendo has crept into their accounts. We cannot here is a marvellously inventive (and invented) flashback, STUDY AT even be sure that Claudius was poisoned, let alone that it a retrojection to the reign of Claudius, of many of those was administered on mushrooms or by a corrupt doctor iconic moments that took place, so Roman writers said, with a feather. After all, there is nothing easier than to in the reign of Nero. That shipwreck of Claudius which explain unexplained deaths by allegations of malpractice launches the whole plot is a clever prequel of the boating THE LIR – particularly when (as in the case of Claudius) there were accident of Agrippina – both Claudius and Agrippina, AT TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN some obvious beneficiaries of his demise. significantly survive. When Agrippina hides behind the screen, while Poppaea (Poppea) meets Claudius (Claudio) Even more to the point, the picture of Agrippina and her alone in his apartment, it looks forward to Agrippina UNDERGRADUATE COURSES blighted family relations derives in part from a series of concealed behind the curtain, while the senate meet ancient stereotypes about women, corruption and power. in the palace. And, of course, albeit in very different Acting, Stage Management and Technical One of the ways Roman writers had of making sense of the circumstances, Otho (Ottone) in the end really does Theatre, Acting and Theatre dysfunction of imperial politics at the highest level was to become emperor. see it in terms of the unnatural behaviour of the female POSTGRADUATE COURSES sex: women getting above themselves and usurping the Handel’s opera is a cunning variation on the ancient story power that rightly belonged to men was both a symbol of Agrippina, transposing the events of the reign of Nero Theatre Directing, Stage Design of, and an explanation for, what was the matter at the back into the reign of Claudius, and weaving brilliant (including lighting, set and costume top of Roman society.