Now we know not to call “The Comet / Poppea” a mashup.
That was the obvious expectation before Friday night’s premiere of Yuval Sharon’s latest operatic experiment with his company, the Industry. Sharon simultaneously pits a lasciviously immoral Venetian opera from 1643 with a new opera based on W.E.B. Du Bois’ dystopian, proto-Afrofuturist short story from 1920.
On one half of a revolving stage at Geffen Contemporary at MOCA is an adaptation of Claudio Monteverdi’s “The Coronation of Poppea.” One of the earliest operas in the repertory, it remains one of the most luxuriantly sexy — an arresting purveyor of the pleasure of iniquity. The dazzling set is a gleaming white Baroque fantasyland.
READ the rest of this rave review in the Los Angeles Times.
The Comet / Poppea is produced by Anthony Roth Costanzo and Cath Brittan, The Industry, AMOC* (American Modern Opera Company), Curtis Institute of Music, and Yale Schwarzman Center.