Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – In THE COMET/POPPEA, operatic worlds collide in logistically impressive if dramatically bemusing fashion

• By drediman
• June 27, 2025
• No Comments

There was much anticipation surrounding the New York premiere of The Comet/Poppea, essentially a mash-up of two operas — Monteverdi’s 1643 Baroque masterpiece L’Incoronazione di Poppea and George Lewis’s 2024 opera The Comet (which individually was a Pulitzer Prize Finalist last year) — which concluded its short run last weekend. The endeavor is the brainchild of adventurous director Yuval Sharon, whose unconventional stagings of operas have caught the imagination of audiences around the world (as a testament to his increasing clout in the industry, Sharon has been tapped to direct the Metropolitan Opera’s new Ring Cycle in a few years time).

The presentation is one of the summer offerings of the Run AMOC* Festival (“AMOC” stands for American Modern Opera Company), one of the anchor series of this year’s iteration of Lincon Center’s Summer for the City. It’s the kind of ambitious programming that once characterized the marquee performing arts institution’s artistically expansive, now defunct festivals (e.g., Lincoln Center Festival, White Light Festival), of which I have many very fond memories. In The Comet/Poppea, Monteverdi and Lewis’s operas were staged simultaneously on the stage of the David H. Koch Theater on back-to-back sets on a turntable in constant rotation (audiences were seated on two sides of the turntable, effectively in the theater’s wings). The result was that each side of the audience had bespoke experiences, given that each viewer was only privy to one side of the action. To be sure, Sharon’s concept was a fascinating one, and the transitions between the two worlds — a pristine Roman bath and apocalyptic 1920s New York — was executed more seamlessly than I thought possible (kudos to the onstage technical team). That being said, aside from being an impressive logistic accomplishment, the larger meaning of combining the two operas eluded me.

The music-making was excellent throughout. Leading a 10-piece orchestra, conductor Marc Lowenstein skillfully navigated the flip-flopping between the two musical vernaculars — Monteverdi’s gorgeous and stately Baroque composition; Lewis’s more trenchant and visceral style, complete with expressionistic strands of jazz — all the while maintaining a semblance of dramatic momentum. Particularly affecting was the work’s conclusion, which was one of the few segments in which the two works meaningfully reached towards each other across dimensions. The accomplished cast included the likes of bass-baritone Davóne Tines and countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, who sang with great feeling and beauty throughout.

RECOMMENDED

THE COMET/POPPEA
Opera
Lincoln Center’s Summer for the City / David H. Koch Theater
1 hour, 30 minutes (without an intermission)
Through June 21