Reimagining Monteverdi with IN Series’ POPPEA
IN SERIES TO PRESENT POPPEA, MARCH 21st-23rd at BALTIMORE THEATRE PROJECT
When Claudio Monteverdi capped an illustrious, sometimes contentious career with his final opera, L’incoronazione di Poppaea, in the 1640s, he provided a vivid example of some of his most forward-thinking and experimental notions. Ideas at once innovative and imitative, radical and neo-classical, pursuing a fusion of dramatic storytelling with musical expression in service of a complex narrative about complicated, even flawed, characters—all based on historical reality but also filled with contemporary resonance and observation.
Drawing on salacious bits of imperial Roman history (are there any other kind, really?) surrounding the infamous reign of Nero, Monteverdi mined them for all the highlights and lowlights of extreme human emotion and behavior they offered; mixed that with inventions and elaborations of his own to ensure risky contemporary resonances with the take-no-prisoners politics of his day; and slurried that all with bold new ideas about ways to recapture, recreate, or resurrect ancient Greek dramatic practices. And all for commercial impact, to sell tickets!
A tall order indeed. But for all that, one assumes Monteverdi would never have imagined that, here in 2025, we’d be able to enjoy a world premiere new adaptation of his landmark work that further fuses the original with elements of classical Southeast Asian music, dance, drama, literature, and more.
Yet under the artistic leadership of Timothy Nelson, that is precisely what IN Series is bringing to our local stages, including a brief run at Baltimore Theatre Project March 21st-23rd.
This original, experimental adaptation, titled Poppea, in many ways could be said to mirror Monteverdi’s own experimentation with form and content. It features a hybrid of his Baroque text and music with elements of traditional Bharatanatyam dance, original sitar music, literary extracts from Southeast Asian texts, and more interdisciplinary and cross-cultural elements.
In fact, Poppea represents the third in a trilogy of Monteverdi operas similarly adapted to intersect with elements of traditional and classical Asian performance—a series of “Illicit” texts that contribute to the company’s larger mission to allow these works and global performance modes to engage with big, enduring, and especially current questions.
To talk about this innovative, original project, I was so pleased to speak virtually with Timothy Nelson—who not only leads InSeries but has helmed this production alongside a veritable cornucopia of creative collaborators.
Enjoy my full conversation with the production’s director, and IN Series Artistic Director, Timothy Nelson here
Audio PlayerFor tickets, information, and much more, visit https://www.inseries.org/post/poppea
or check out Baltimore Theatre Project for this production and much more at https://theatreproject.org/upcoming-shows/
And enjoy an extensive blog post from Timothy Nelson reflecting on Monteverdi’s life, career, and work; putting this piece and production in wider context; and illuminating some of the creative collaborations and partnerships it relied on-here https://weta.org/fm/classical-score/last-opera-father-opera-look-monteverdis-poppea-series-timothy-nelson
