Zurich Opera at the Royal Festival Hall May 2009

Zurich Opera returned to Southbank Centre with a concert performance of Agrippina, the opera that put Handel on the map with its skilful reflection of the story in the music. Reflecting a world of back-stabbing, politics, power and corruption, the opera examines the relationship between women and power in a gripping story of one woman’s destructive desire for control.

Marc Minkowski, the acclaimed Handel expert, conducted the Zurich Opera House Orchestra La Scintilla and cast, fresh from staged performances at Zurich Opera House:

Vesselina Kasarova Agrippina
Eva Liebau Poppea
Marijana Mijanovic Ottone
Anna Bonitatibus Nerone
Wiebke Lehmkuhl Giunone
Laszlo Polgar Claudio
Ruben Drole Pallante
Jose Lemos Narciso
Gabriel Bermudez Lesbo

"A smoothly integrated ensemble, conducted with tremendous verve and silky refinement' (Telegraph).

"Although this was billed as a concert performance, there was more drama than you get in many a complete staging.
Even though two of the singers carried scores, they barely seemed to need them. There was no weak link. László Polgár's sonorous, slightly stiff bass nicely caught Emperor Claudius's duplicitous charm, while Anna Bonitatibus's scintillating coloratura made Nero almost attractive. As Otho, the opera's only good guy, Marijana Mijanovic was extraordinary but towering over everything was the venomous gargoyle of Vesselina Kasarova's Agrippina" (Evening Standard).