Soprano Jane Redding makes her fourth appearance with the Virginia Opera as the glamorous Poppea in Handel’s fast-paced farce, “Agrippina.”
“I like my character very much, although I didn’t expect to at first,” Redding says. “I thought she’d be a bimbo, but that isn’t the case. She really understands her place in the palace society and knows how to capitalize on it. She is gorgeous, smart, and uses her sex appeal and assets to get what she wants. The men may be incontrol, but the women have the power.
“Lillian Groag, our stage director has created some amusing scenes. One of the funniest happens when Poppea takes her gloves off after she sees she’s been lied to. It turns into a bedroom farce with all three of her boyfriends scampering about in her bedroom. Lillian’s mantra is pointing out what absurd lengths people will go to in order to have power.
“You laugh and you cry as the characters and plot spin a wheel of emotions. All of them but one really existed, so when the opera premiered in 1728, people watching it for the first time knew them all from history. Empress Agrippina, Emperor Claudius, Nero and Poppea aren’t nearly so familiar to audiences today.”
Redding, a native of Corinth, Miss., intended to teach music in a university. She accomplished that goal and received her doctor of musical arts degree from Louisiana State University, but along the way she began singing professionally. Her career took off so quickly that she spent less time in the classroom than on stage singing such coveted roles as Cunegone in “Candide,” Mary Warren in “The Crucible,” Zerlina in “Don Giovanni” and the title roles in “Lucia Di Lammermoor” and “The Daughter of the Regiment.”
Her gorgeous high notes and versatility served her well in earlier Virginia Opera engagements as Susanna in “The Marriage of Figaro,” Gilda in “Rigoletto” and Rosina in “The Barber of Seville.” Now she welcomes the opportunity to return and work with Artistic Director/Conductor Peter Mark and the stellar cast that hails from as far as Seoul, Korea.
“I love coming back here because it’s such a well-run organization and everyone is so friendly,” she says. “The situation couldn’t be nicer and neither could Handel’s music. It’s beautiful, light and sparkles with lots of challenging runs and scales. The entire opera is fast-paced with plenty of blood, action and drama — certainly not an anemic production. Standing and singing is boring, so I love being able to tell a story dramatically to express my character’s emotional state of mind.”
The Virginia Opera performs in three venues: the home base in Norfolk’s Harrison Opera House, Richmond’s Landmark Theater and GMU’s Center for the Arts. For its debut in the state, “Agrippina” sports magnificent sets and costumes to illuminate the satire about ancient Rome’s scheming and murderous politicians. Redding promises that the production will capture the attention of both regular opera-goers and those who are attending an opera for the first time.
“Poppea comes out well in the opera, although in actual history she did some ruthless things,” she says. “The one little kink in her plans is that she didn’t expect to fall in love. She is the only one in the show who evolves from a Teflon beginning and wonders why she feels the way she does.
“Everyone will find the story amusing, maybe even disturbing,” she says. “But these are authentic people whose actions may push some buttons and make the audience think.”
IF YOU GO …
Virginia Opera presents the Virginia premiere of Handel’s “Agrippina”
When: 8 p.m. tonight and 2 p.m. Sunday
Venue: George Mason University Center for the Arts, Fairfax
Tickets: $44 to $90
Info: 703-218-6500, Tickets.com. www.vaopera.org
Wine, cheese tasting: 6:30 p.m.
