Notes that “certain dramatic situations are well suited to portrayal in terms of
the contrast between speech and song,” and that “certain emotional states,
happiness or exuberance, translate naturally into song because the character
feels like singing.” The melodic line expresses feelings in different ways: a
“wandering irresolute melodic line, like that of Ottone, knows not where it
goes.” Erratic rhythm portrays Ottone’s heartbeat in the opening of act 2,
scene 2. Similar examples of word-painting are cited. But in Poppea,“music
does not imitate text; it co-opts its function in the representation of feeling.”- Chiarelli, Alessandra. “L’incoronazione di Poppeao Il Nerone: Problemi di
filologia testuale.” RIM9 (1974): 117–151.
A summary of the author’s dissertation, U. of Bologna, 1973. She compares
the Venetian and Neapolitan manuscripts in great detail, collating all sources. - Heller, Wendy. “Tacitus Incognito: Opera as History in L’incoronazione di
Poppea.” JAMS52–1 (Spring 1999): 39–96.
The earliest known account of Nero’s affair with Poppea Sabina was in the
Annalsof Tacitus. The suicide of Seneca is portrayed by Tacitus as a moral vic-
tory in the neostoic tradition, but in Venice the event was reinterpreted. The
Accademia degli Incogniti sided with “political pragmatism rather than moral
censure, with civic virtue rather than withdrawal and solitude, and with the
fulfillment of natural instincts rather than their suppression.” Thus the prob-
lematic ending of the opera is explained, in terms of contemporary values. The
article also takes up the role of women in 17th-century Venice and the evi-
dence of male homosexuality in the opera (Nero is alleged to have been homo-
sexual, and a passage in the Nerone/Lucano duet is found to be erotic in its
melodic/harmonic elements, “the musical representation of the sexual cli-
max”). These ideas are intricately worked out, and 114 footnotes lead to the
relevant literature. - Degrada, Francesco. “Gian Francesco Busenello e il libretto della Incoron-
azione di Poppea.” In Congresso Internazionale(#1208), 81–102.
Biography and background of Busenello and aspects of the Poppealibretto.
His text, dark and pessimistic, was altered by Monteverdi to give a more posi-
tive, Christian perspective. - Covell, Roger David. “Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea: The Musical
and Dramatic Structure.” Ph.D. diss., U. of New South Wales, 1977. - Curtis, Alan. “La Poppea impasticciata.” JAMS42-1 (Spring 1989): 23–54.
Stylistic and historic evidence indicates that Monteverdi did not write all the
music. Suggests that Francesco Sacrati was probably another composer
involved. See next entry. - Chafe, Eric. Monteverdi’s Tonal Language (#1214), chapters 13, 14, and 15.
These parts of the book are concerned with Poppea. Chafe takes up the tonal
language, and the “two symmetrical points of allegorical culmination, the first
Seneca’s otherworldly victory, fulfilled in his death, and the second very much
a worldly victory, celebrating life and love, regardless of the absence of virtue.”
Claudio Monteverdi 237