GLIMMERGLASS - At the last minute I was invited to take an overnight trip to Glimmerglass to hear Agrippina, my second (sort of) exposure to the work. (The first time was a student production at Riverside Church about 4 years ago; I left after the second act because it was just too arch to bear, and past the 3- hour mark already with a whole third to go.)

I stayed for all of the Glimmerglass version. The outstanding singing IMO came from Derrick Parker (Claudio), rich noble tone and a fine dignified stage presence despite the tin cans tied to his tail in this repellent, coarse and cliched staging by Lillian Groag (more about that later.) Alexandra Coku positively radiates razor-sharp musicianship; she acted and used the text superbly and looked the last word in icy glamour as the scheming title character, but I felt she really didn't start to sing until toward the end of the second act in her "Storm" waltz-song. And even then I kept hearing her drop off the ends of phrases and generally "cheat"
the vocals. On the other hand, her third act "repentance" aria was sheerly beautiful, a warm voice with real "face" and a delicate sense of line.

David Walker's role of Ottone didn't give him much in the way of opportunities, though he shaped his slow Act 2 aria beautifully. He is in a good deal finer vocal form than the last time I heard him in New York, but there's still a patch in the lower-middle voice where he sings flat, most likely I think because his vowels there are way too open. Not too much to report on the other singers: Karen Wierzba chirped nicely as Poppea and looked as cheap as her director wanted her to be. Unfortunately, Beth
Clayton sounded frayed and ragged, the divisions uneven and cackly, and the top blowsy.

This production puts the "low" into "low camp" -- a libretto telling of life and death intrigues for the Roman Imperial succession was debased into a drag-show parody of Dynasty, one sight gag after another involving cigarettes, martini glasses and (how's this for relevance?) cocaine- sniffing. And after three hours of this stale triviality, Ms. Groag had the gall to omit the supertitles for the final chorus and instead offer synopses of the characters' dismal future destinies (a la American Graffiti). Gee, too bad that old buffoon Handel wasn't informed so he could write some properly doom-laden music.

James Jorden