(Photo credit: Matthias Horn)

“Agrippina” from the Händel Festival 2025, is a glittering, cynical comedy of ambition, soaked in psychological warfare. This production plunges Agrippina into a dazzling contemporary world that is as intriguing as its Roman origins. Director Walter Sutcliffe and set designer Aleksandar Denic have boldly reimagined the Roman Senate as the glittering interior of a Las Vegas-style nightlife empire, ‘Caesar’s Palace Entertainment.’ The emperor Claudio morphs into a flashy entertainment mogul, while the scheming cast become nightclub managers and showgirls, turning ancient intrigues into modern power plays.

The stage itself is a visual spectacle: a rotating two-level nightclub bursting with neon lights and LED flashes. One side features a moody bar with long sofa and towering stools; the other, a neon-lit performance platform with grand steps. Overhead, a pink, umbrella-shaped canopy sparkles with LED arrays, while digital screens behind the sofa flood the space with flashing lottery numbers. Lighting designer Lothar Baumgarte masterfully blends cool blue-violet hues with bursts of warm gold, the flickering stage lights pulsing like heartbeat rhythms that synchronize with emotional shifts on the stage. The rotating stage — encircled by a metallic curtain that flashes under lights — centers the power struggles within this shimmering frame. As the stage turns, so too does the balance of power.

Romelia Lichtenstein’s Agrippina commands attention, with every one of her entrances feeling like a red carpet event. Each of her costumes — bold, jewel-toned purple or black gowns — makes a statement about the character’s dominance. Her voice cuts like a razor, matching the ruthless political machinations she embodies. Her aria ‘L’alma mia fra le tempeste,’ borrowed from Handel’s earlier material, features oboe lines cleverly mimicking trumpets, evoking the storm of conflict inside Agrippina’s heart. Lichtenstein’s portrayal swings effortlessly from icy calculation in the swinging ‘Se vuoi pace’ to seething torment in ‘Pensieri, voi mi tormentate,’ revealing a woman both manipulative and haunted. Her Agrippina is never hysterical — only dangerous.

If Agrippina is control incarnate, Nerone is chaos barely contained. Leandro Marziotte’s Nerone is a cowboy-hatted, fringe-jacketed party prince drunk on instant gratification and reckless bravado. His swaggering, provocative movements crackle with youthful excess. In one of the most memorable scenes, he attempts to seduce Poppea with a nearly-nude striptease, all the while delivering brilliant metallic vocal lines. It is shocking, ridiculous — and devastatingly effective. Nerone is not just comic relief but a portrait of inherited power curdling into grotesque self-display.

Vanessa Waldhart’s Poppea dazzles as the quintessential Vegas showgirl: dressed in reflective leggings, equal parts siren and strategist, she navigates Claudio, Nerone, and Ottone with slick charm. Her voice sparkles with agility and subtlety; moments of coquettish teasing glide into razor-sharp irony with breathless ease. Her duels with Agrippina, especially in the second act, blaze with raw emotional electricity, becoming one of the evening’s most intense highlights.

Ki-Hyun Park’s Claudio is no mere caricature of a Roman emperor; he emerges as a confident entertainment boss, both grandiose and absurd. His ‘Cade il mondo,’ lifted from Handel’s “La Resurrezione” Lucifer scene, transforms into a biting fantasy of control unraveling. The aria ‘Io di Roma il Giove sono,’ punctuated by staccato strings, captures the hollow vanity of a man drunk on power and illusion.

Christopher Ainslie’s Ottone defies the usual trope of the gentle suitor, instead revealing a complex, tortured soul. His singing is rich with nuanced colors and emotional depth. Ainslie’s controlled restraint gives Ottone a tragic realism that grounds the drama.

Intriguingly, the male courtier Narciso is gender-bent in this production, with Narciso reimagined as Narcissa, a female nightclub dancer played convincingly by Annika Westlund. This choice adds a fresh layer of complexity and ambiguity, enriching the social dynamics onstage, even if it defies traditional interpretation.

While the production cuts several secondary arias and also shortens ABA forms of many da capo arias to single A sections — trading some musical fullness for dramatic momentum — the fast-paced direction keeps the narrative taut. Conductor Lawrence Cummings and the Handel Festival Orchestra respond with lively precision and clarity, maintaining dramatic tension amid the condensed score.

This “Agrippina” brilliantly exposes Handel’s deft technique of recycling his own music into a sharp pastiche, while the cast’s vivid performances and Sutcliffe’s imaginative direction resurrect the centuries-old political satire as a vibrant, contemporary spectacle. Just as Handel originally crafted the opera for the carnivalesque atmosphere of Venice’s 1709–1710 Carnival, this production balances dazzling theatrical effects with artistic integrity. Its glitter and grit find a perfect equilibrium, reminding us that “Agrippina” remains, at its core, a razor-sharp commentary wrapped in irresistible entertainment — a triumph of music and a modern parable about power, vanity, and human folly.