Love as Persuasion in Monteverdi's 'L'incoronazione di Poppea': New Thoughts on the

Authorship Question
Author(s): Rachel A. Lewis
Source: Music & Letters, Vol. 86, No. 1 (Feb., 2005), pp. 16-41
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3526030
Accessed: 05-10-2018 01:38 UTC

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Music & Letters, Vol. 86 No. 1, ? Oxford University Press 2005; all rights reserved
doi: 10.1093/ml/gci002, available online at www.ml.oupjournals.org

LOVE AS PERSUASION IN MONTEVERDI'S

'L'INCORONAZIONE DI POPPEA':
NEW THOUGHTS ON THE AUTHORSHIP QUESTION
BY RACHEL A. LEWIS

Che '1 mondo a' cenni miei si muta.

(At my signal, the world is changed completely.)

WITH THESE WORDS, spoken in soliloquy by the allegorical figure of Amore, the prologue
to Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea draws to a close, the triumph of Love over For-
tune and Virtue predetermined from the outset. The underlying theme of the drama is
the love of Poppea and Nerone, which, despite all hindrances, reaches fulfilment with
Poppea's coronation at the close of the opera. Focusing primarily on Poppea's trans-
gressive rhetoric, which manoeuvres both inside and outside ideologies of the feminine,
this article has two main objectives: first, to situate the gender confusion at the heart of
the Poppea-Nerone relationship within the context of the sexually double nature of
Renaissance rhetoric,1 and, secondly, to locate these findings within the much broader
issue of 'Who wrote the music to L'incoronazione di Poppea?'2 Arguing for an alternative
composer or composers for the Finale, I suggest that the patriarchal retribution wit-
nessed here in the form of Nerone's musical empowerment, when coupled with the
'affective' nature of the final love duet, 'Pur ti miro', postulates a rhetorical outlook
significantly at odds with the opera as a whole.
Let us first consider the Poppea-Nerone partnership as it is constructed within the
main body of the opera. Poppea and Nerone appear together twice in Act I, the former
successfully ensuring both the repudiation of Nerone's wife, Ottavia (Act I, sc. iii), and
the death of the philosopher Seneca (Act I, sc. x).3 Busenello's dialogue for Act I, scene
iii implies that this section be set as some sort of recitative. In the score, however, the
long opening speeches for Poppea and Nerone are fragmented through transposition,
multiple interruptions, and text repetition, as the composer presents us with characters
essentially of his own design.4 This enables the scenes between Poppea and Nerone to
My thanks to Jonathan Wainwright, Tim Carter, and the two anonymous readers for Music & Letters whose detailed
comments have helped improve this essay considerably.
'For an excellent summary of the scope and dissemination of rhetoric in the Renaissance, see Wayne Rebhorn,
The Emperor of Men's Minds: Literature and the Renaissance Discourse of Rhetoric (Ithaca and London, 1995).
2 Alan Curtis has argued that at a time when the collaboration of several composers on a large-scale project such as
opera was normal, various portions of Monteverdi's final opera were written or revised by younger composers who fin-
ished parts of L'incoronazione di Poppea that Monteverdi had left incomplete. Noting stylistic and notational peculiarities,
Curtis concluded that the role of Ottone was rewritten for a singer with a slightly higher voice by a younger composer or
composers, while certain instrumental interludes were composed by Francesco Cavalli. In terms of the authorship of the
Finale and, in particular, the notorious love duet, 'Pur ti miro', Francesco Sacrati and Benedetto Ferrari were considered
the most likely contenders. For further information see Alan Curtis, 'La Poppea Impasticciata or, Who Wrote the Music to
L'Incoronazione (1643)?', Journal of the American Musicological Society, 42 (1989), 23-54.
3 Because Monteverdi employs similar strategies of persuasion for each of the Act I scenes noted above, I focus in
detail here on just one: the opening dialogue between Poppea and Nerone.
4 For a more comprehensive discussion of the ways in which Monteverdi departs from Busenello's libretto in Act I,
scene iii, see Tim Carter, Monteverdi's Musical Theatre (New Haven and London, 2002), 66-73.

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follow a pattern beginning with erotic solos in which Poppea establishes the basis of her
power over Nerone.5
Poppea's initially flirtatious demand, 'Signor, signor, deh non partire' ('My lord, my
lord, pray do not leave'), set to an expansive melodic descent from a' to dt (bb. 4-11),
introduces the languid tone that dominates the first section (see Ex. 1).6 When Nerone
enters with the words 'Poppea, lascia ch'io parta' ('Poppea, let me go'), the straightfor-
ward tonic-subdominant, dominant-tonic harmonic progression7 signals an abrupt
contrast to Poppea's lingering, sensuous style of declamation (see Ex. 2). Poppea, how-
ever, refuses to be subdued so easily and appeals instead to Nerone's vanity, describing
him as her 'sun incarnate', her 'palpable light', and the 'amorous day' of her life ('e tu
che sei L'incarnato mio sole / La mia palpabil luce / E l'amoroso di della mia vita').
The dissonant, capricious harmonies and repeated melodic sighing figures all reflect
Poppea's desire that Nerone understand she is utterly overwhelmed by his presence, her
senses literally 'expiring' with love for him. Ever the ingenious courtesan, Poppea plays the
'weak woman' card to perfection here, as she usurps and perverts the semiotics tradition-
ally associated with femininity-emotional instability and fragility-to her own ends.8

Ex. 1. Act I, scene iii, bars 1-11 (p. 29)

POPPEA

Si- gnor, si- gnor, deh non par-ti - re, So -

J? lo l\ r I i mrJ
6 t
5

X , _ ^ J)|J J 22 D |^J 1 8 D D D
-stien che que- ste brac - cia Ti cir-con - di- no il col - lo, Co- me le

I I I
6
8

Rights Reserved. Reprinted by Permission.

tue bel-lez - ze Cir-con o da-no il c or mi - o.

ff r fr IK C If r l I 1
~~~- ~ 6 7 6 4 6fl
5 Eric Chafe, Monteverdi's Tonal Language (New or
of Act I, scene iii.
6 The examples are based on the Novello edition
(Ldodon and Sevenoaks, 1989). Copyright ? 1989
All Rights Reserved. Reprinted by Permission.
7 While occasionally, and somewhat reluctantly, engaging in anachronistic modes of analysis here, I am forced to
acknowledge that a diatonic theoretical framework best illuminates the distribution of power at work in the Poppea-
Nerone scenes. As Eric Chafe comments, 'Monteverdi's tonal "world" is not that of the major/minor system, but it can
accommodate references to it when a particular meaning is intended' (Monteverdi's Tonal Language, 313).
8 As Eric Chafe observes, 'the unmistakable element of control in Poppea's Mannerist sharp/flat juxtapositions dem-
onstrates sexual manipulation of the highest quality' (Chafe, Monteverdi's Tonal Language, 252).

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Ex. 2. Act I, scene iii, bars 12-37 (p. 30)

POPPEA
12 NERONE

-
Poppe -
Pop-pe a,a,
la-
la-scia
scia ch'io par - ta. Non par-tir, non par-tir, Si

:p fJ
16
I- j .J I~ j 6
- jII?

:J J .J ' . . ~ h, l
- gnor, deh non par - ti -re. Ap - pe - na spun- ta l'al - ba, e tu che

~:$o II f ' I' 7Jl I. .

>b t t 7 6
20

E E 2 p ir Ir I l PI r r I p p p r I
se - i L'in-car-na - to mio so - le, Lamia pal-pa - bil lu - ce, E 'a-mo-ro - so

9:J J Ij IJ J j I
6 6
b b
24

di del-la mia vi- ta, Vuoi si re-pen-te far da me, da me, da me, da me par-ti -

:j5. J Ij - IJ . l -f 'r r i 6 b 56

29

^ ta?
r
Deh non
T dir
f di par
i
v: 1 " i1" i IF
6 - b,

33

pe- rir, a - hi spi - rar que-st'al-maio sen to.

fr f Ir r I3 J J I o
- # ~ 3 b ~ t

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Combining potent sensuality with outright flattery, the latter a device gleaned directly
from male-authored love poetry,9 Poppea manoeuvres both inside and outside ideolo-
gies of the feminine, deploying multiple strategies to win back her beloved.
As the scene progresses, Monteverdi takes further liberties in the treatment of Busenello's
text; he persistently repeats Poppea's questions to Nerone, causing her to lead him relent-
lessly towards the renunciation of Ottavia and the promise of his return.'? When Nerone
becomes uncertain as he refers to the banishment of Ottavia (Ex. 3, b. 42), pausing at her
name on the dominant ofF, Poppea takes advantage of her lover's hesitation and gradually
resumes control of the dialogue until the dominant key is established at the close of the
section. The words 'in sin che' ('until') function as a musical prompting by Poppea, who
adopts Nerone's C major harmony and moves the line upward by thirds through a G
minor chord, thereby forcing Nerone to make a resolution on the note a' (b. 52) (see Ex. 3).
In the crucial arioso sections, Poppea's impassioned appeals have clearly achieved the
desired result, as Nerone is now less prepared to leave. The breathless fragmentation of the
melody through rests and the constantly fluctuating metre, which alternates between triple
and common time, signals Nerone's inability to fid the appropriate words with which to
express his feelings (see Ex. 4). Poppea's response, 'Signor, sempre me vedi' ('My Lord, you
always see me'), feeds upon Nerone's internal conflict as she attempts to woo her lover with
further adulation in a march-like duple time, major key, and walking bass formation (see
Ex. 5). Poppea's sheer single-mindedness here-her usurpation of a 'masculine' preroga-
tive, as it were-may be compared with Nerone's more erratic tonal impulses, the latter a
phenomenon associated with the representation of'femininity' in music."l
Poppea fully exploits Nerone's volatile emotions by repeatedly interrupting his
dialogue with her own resolute demands of 'Tornerai?' ('will you return?'). Nerone,
meanwhile, deliberately eludes Poppea's probing questions with an evasive dominant-
tonic cadence. He is no match for Poppea, though, whose third exclamation of
'Tornerai?' (b. 157) rises in pitch as she attempts to extract more promises from the
uncertain Nerone by calculatingly directing the harmony away from D minor to G
major, thereby forcing Nerone to respond in that key (see Ex. 6).
Through eleven further bars, Poppea elicits three more G major cadences from
Nerone, forcing him to swear that he will return and keep his promise. Her final ques-
tion, 'e me l'osserverai?' ('and you will keep your promise?'), rises to the note e" (b. 180),
successfully merging the 'tornerai' figure with the opening 'farewell' music (see Ex. 7).12
With this, Poppea initiates Nerone's last and most decisive G major cadence, 'E s'a te
non verro, tu a me verrai' ('And if I do not come to you, you will come to me'). The
scene then concludes with Poppea's affirmation of dominant harmony prior to Nerone's
full close in the tonic, the culmination of which is paradoxical: it is Poppea who informs
Nerone that he may leave; his final cadence-little more than a mimicry of her earlier
command-is a mere illusion of'masculine' authority (see Ex. 8).
As the above analysis of Act I, scene iii all too clearly shows, Monteverdi gives Poppea
a great deal more power in the music than she warrants from Busenello's libretto; in
her scenes with Nerone she is by far the dominant musical personality. Her musically satisfy-
ing vocal line contrasts sharply with Nerone's utterances, which are almost all reactive as the

9 See Ann RosalindJones, 'City Women and their Audiences: Louise Lab6 and Veronica Franco', in Margaret W.
Ferguson, Maureen Quilligan, and NancyJ. Vickers (eds.), Rewriting the Renaissance: The Discourses of Sexual Difference in Eary
Modem Europe (Chicago and London, 1986), 299-316 at 305.
'0 Chafe, Monteverdi's Tonal Language, 317.
" Susan McClary discusses musical semiotics of'masculine' and 'feminine' in more general terms in 'Constructions of
Gender in Monteverdi's Dramatic Music' in her Feminine Endings: Music, Gender and Sexuality (London, 1991), 35-52.
12 Chafe, Monteverdi's Tonal Language, 355.

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Ex. 3. Act I, scene iii, bars 38-52 (p. 31)

38 NERONE

-, y - J 2, .1', I
La no-bil - ta_ de'na-sci-men ti tuo - i Non per-met - te che

y:o I.L6 j I , , I

41

W^ I J hJ Jh hJ I J. , I[]; J 1|1[']
Ro - ma Sap- pia che sia- mou-ni - ti, In sin ch'Ot - ta - via...

'J J I.. I[],J 11[[ .

44 POPPEA NERONE

-[4 L.J J . . K I U .a I r 6 ph
In sin che... in sin che.. ....in sin ch'Ot-ta- via non ri-

[ ] I,J r 11 I

47 POPPEA

;-~ J
-ma - ne es-clu- sa... Non ri - ma - ne... non ri - ma - ne...
J J
: J F l? II o J 11
50 NERONE

-Q 1 r~
i'^ pI . IvT
....
p r.J
p p- p.J
>r- J
...in sin ch'Ot-ta - via nonri- ma - ne e-sclu- sa Colre- pu - dio da me:

0 ? IISr- -r J I-[?]
volatile flux of his emotions is attributable to the dire
lation.'3 Monteverdi has transformed the dialogue betw
13 In each of the Poppea-Nerone scenes, the three Aristotelian un
(human actions and experiences), characters of the person (moral qualit
tual qualities), where the opposition between plot and character is an e
potentiality. Aristotle also declares that in order to possess unity, a sto
dents should be selected that seem to be bound in a strict sequence of
exemplified in 'Poppea'. For a more detailed discussion of Aristoteli
1923), 285.

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Ex. 4. Act I, scene iii, bars 68-90 (pp. 32-3)

68 th NERONE
t
Dalprofon do del
I
In un so- spir, so- spir che vien Dal pro - fon - do del
- L

o:2 . 6 r I r F I r -L a 1- I
7 6
5 6 7 6

72

sen, In un so-spir, so-spir che vien, so-spir che vien Dal pro-fon - do del

7: ' y' ir' 4 I' , 6 1' , h _,Ij. 6 5 6 - - 7 6

77

sen, In-clu-doun ba - cio, o ca - ra, ca-ra, ed un ad-di - -

: 1 I,'J. IJ jl In[J 1]
_ - 6 66 6 [6] 6

81

- o: Si ri - ve - drem ben to - sto, si, si, si ri - ve- drem,

:? ,[i].J ' 6 1 6
~ _?#J
t 6 6

3Y C 1'6v ' pp 1 iQ"[t

84

si ri - ve-dremben to- sto, i -do- lo mi - o, si ri- ve -

; y , \^ r[_ f I ' r I.[i. ] r" , ,

6 6

87

P p 6P r [ ?r ? v 1? ^ f
-drem ben to - sto, i - - do - lo mi - o.

Lf - lr P I" I 1
66 6

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Ex. 5. Act I, scene iii, bars 94-100 (p. 33)

94 POPPEA

Si- gnor, sem - pre mi ve- di, sem-pre, sem

:. , i I1 L-r I r 4 3 6

97

- pre, sem - pre mi ve- di, An - zi mai non mi ve - di...

-:r - J 1 J -- J IJ .--- I" 6 6 4 3

Ex. 6. Act I, scene

150 POPPEA NERONE

4 Tor-
f neID pJ 6 l? w - Bt~11^p
- rai? Se ben io v6 Pur te - co io sto, Pur te - co io sto.

sy J "rf r r 1 +c J 11
9: #J II7t 1
153 POPPEA NERONE

Tor- ne- rai? ... I1 cor dal4e tue stel- le Mai, mai nonsi di-

g j^ r 11? I I
6 *6 5
4

156
A POPPEA

J J I Ij t I 0j 11I[2]
- vel - c;... Tor-ne-rai?

4:J r I 11 l.[]
4 # ft t(h)

involving mutuality and reciprocity, rathe

notion of identity formation as performative
by appealing to pseudo-scientific constructi
and their impact on the rhetorical discourse w

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Ex. 7. Act I, scene iii, bars 170-96 (p. 37)

NERONE
70 POPPEA k
A k k
POPPEA NERONE

+( i Sr 11t S- 11 r ii[{^] r J J 11
Tor- ne-rai? Tor- ne-r6. Quan- do? Ben to - sto.

7:f r 11m r J IIm[J ['ti I f 11

174 POPPEA NERONE
X -r- r I - L--- 1 r r r 11r
Ben to - sto, Me'l pro- met - ti? Te'l giu - ro.

: r r f j f 11 l r 11I
[h]

177 POPPEA NERONE

Xorm' &T lh rmb

Eme l'os-ser - ve-ra - i? E s'a te non ver-r6, tu a me ver- ra - i.

r Ir J i j 1
6 4 #

180 POPPEA NERONE

,16rr1 ' pm I1 pp
Emel'os-ser - ve-ra - i? E s'a te nonver-r6, tua me ver-ra - i.

: r r IIJ r / IP i j 1
6 6 6 5
4 #

183 POPPEA NERONE POPPEA

- , t I" It? II-

Ad - di - o... Ad - di - o... Ne-ro-ne, Ne-ro-ne,

# : " I I I, i ,
tt tt # tI to
190 NERONE

ad - r " o... Pp-pe-La, P , a - di" ...

ad - di - o... Pop-pe-a, Pop-pe-a, ad - di - o. . .

9-1- r I, I I - I I ". II

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 Ex. 8. Act I, scene iii, bars 197-202 (p. 38)

197 POPPEA a

4W r r (tr4 r ' I 6 I[]r rII[]

... ad -dio, Ne - ro ne, ad -di - o.

200 NERONE

@[] ...?adX- dio,

_ J 1 v t 1[1]J j II
Pop - pe - a, ben mi - o.

s)1]? I: , Y p l iJ r II 6

A
th
la
w
bo
ge
cu
ab
w
he
an
pe
w
pa
it
In
al
lis
ni
ti
co
he
th

14
Eur
Lo
15 Ibid. 104.
16 See ibid. 84. As the Renaissance scholar Ambroise Pare puts it: 'Certainely women have so many and like parts lying
in their wombe, as men have hanging forth; onely a strong and lively heat seemes to be wanting, which may drive forth that
which lyes hid within.' See Ambroise Pare, The Workes ofAmbrose Parey, trans. ThomasJohnson (London, 1634), 975.
'7Jones and Stallybrass, 'Fetishizing Gender', 100.

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appeal,18 Poppea becomes the model of the artful Venetian courtesan, famed for her rhe-
torical skills and eloquence: 'Thou wilt find the Venetian Courtezan... a good Rhetorician,
and a most elegant discourser, so that if she cannot move thee with all these aforesaid
delights, she will assay thy constancy with a Rhetoricall tongue."9 Through her seductive,
imperious rhetoric, with its power to emasculate the impressionable male, Poppea alerts
the audience to the possibility of a subversion of gendered norms within L'incoronazione.
This is a situation that surely would have been exaggerated for seventeenth-century
Venetian audiences, accustomed to hearing the role of Nero being sung by a high male
voice, often that of a castrated male.
The gender confusion at the heart of the Poppea-Nerone partnership is consistent with
the sexually double nature of Renaissance rhetoric in general, which was perceived as a
combination of masculine 'force' and feminine 'guile'.20 On the one hand, rhetoric was
the ultimate art of surface decoration in which emotional appeals and figures of speech
were deployed to seduce the listener. At the same time, however, rhetoric also constituted
a didactic, ultimately 'male', exercise in persuasion. While rhetorical ornaments became
equated with the figure of the deceptive courtesan,2' the lack of clear differentiation
between the sexes in the Renaissance meant that the allegorical figures associated with
force and dominance-Eloquenza, Rettorica, and Persuasione-were also envisaged as
female.22 Like the female body, the 'body' of rhetoric was imagined both as a harmonious,
well-proportioned entity (Lady Rhetoric) and as a perverse or monstrous one bent on
destruction and Circe-like seduction from the truth.23 By transgressing a gendered gram-
mar of eloquence in L'incoronazione, Poppea transforms rhetoric into a Circe figure, an ide-
alized goddess of force and persuasion who contains both sexes within her.
The attribution of qualities to rhetoric associated specifically with this kind of negative
femininity, as embodied by the mythological figure of Circe, inevitably led to the view
of the male rhetor as being in some way effeminized through his art.24 Like the sub-
stance of rhetoric, which acts upon the mind (masculine), while its ornamental figures
act upon the sensibility (feminine), music similarly impresses its listeners by creating in
them the desire for more of its effects. As Suzanne Cusick has pointed out, music is a
performance that naturally invokes associations with the 'feminine' in listeners'
18 For a historical overview of the classical sources influencing Busenello and Monteverdi's characterization of Poppea,
see Wendy Heller, 'Tacito incognito: Opera as History in L'Incoronazione di Poppea', Journal of the American Musicological Society,
52 (1999), 39-96. Heller suggests (p. 63) that it was Tacitus' Agrippina who provided the model for the highly critical repre-
sentation of female power in the opera. See also Ellen Rosand, 'Seneca and the Interpretation of L'Incoronazione di Poppea',
Journal of the American Musicological Society, 38 (1985), 34-71. Rosand draws upon Federico Malipiero's L'imperatrice ambiziosa
(1642), which chronicles Agrippina's rise to power. As she notes, Malipiero describes Poppaea's hold on Nero in a passage
bearing a clear resemblance to the distribution of power at work in L'incoronazione di Poppea: 'Poppaea took control of Nero's
will with absolute command, because Love, who shamelessly drives away all reputation in women, becomes, in the heart of
a lover, an enchantment without witchcraft that induces and forces men to abandon all reason in favour of the senses. To
such a state was Nero reduced that her merest hints were as absolute commands to him' (ibid. 50).
'9 Coryat's Crudities (1611; repr. Glasgow, 1905), i. 405. For a more general discussion of female rhetoric and courtesan
culture in 17th-c. Venetian opera, see Wendy Heller, Emblems of Eloquence: Opera and Women's Voices in Seventeenth-Century
Venice (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 2003), esp. 13-17.
20 For an account of the gendered metaphors used to describe Renaissance rhetoric, see Rebhorn, The Emperor of Men's
Minds, 21.
21 Ibid. 140-1. In his II riposo of 1584, the Italian Renaissance poet Raffaello Borghini identified rhetoric with Venus
and the 'veneres', or 'shameful parts', once again evoking the possibility of seduction in connection with the art. For the
translation, see Rebhor, The Emperor of Men's Minds, 181.
22 The 17th-c. Roman rhetorician Cesare Ripa describes three different images of Eloquenza, two of Rettorica, and
one of Persuasione. See Cesare Ripa, Iconologia (Rome, 1603), 126. For the translation, see Rebhorn, The Emperor ofMen's
Minds, 64.
23 The prevailing view of Renaissance rhetoric as the harbinger of disruptive 'feminine' allurements inevitably led to
the equation of the art with a form of Circean temptation (ibid. 143). For a discussion of the ways in which Renaissance
rhetoric was identified with the body, see also ibid. 64.
24 Ibid. 21.

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responses.25 In L'incoronazione di Poppea, it is Nerone who, through his inability to provoke
action, effectively renders himself passive and thus feminine in receipt of Poppea's musical
caresses.

Nerone's 'unmanly' behaviour in his scenes with Poppea

of the seventeenth-century Venetian patrician Giov
Loredano, who was the founder of the Venetian Accad
often discusses the devastating consequences of a female
an impressionable male audience.26 The following pas
course La biasmo delle donne sums up the academy's
women's rhetorical power and its debilitating effects on
she lies, and when she smiles, she deceives, and if she w
ordinarily filled with the honey of flattery... and with
lect and reason, and transforms men into beasts.'27 In L
who becomes the exemplar of false Love as persuasion an
into a 'beast'; for, as we shall see in the following enc
Lucano, the former is rendered rhetorically impotent
lover's eloquence.
Nowhere is Nerone's effeminate behaviour more apparen
duet with the poet Lucano. The interpolation of this ma
inspired by a historical poetry contest between the t
awarded the prize.28 Monteverdi, once again altering Bu
recognition, redistributes to Lucano text originally assig
latter, completely overcome by erotic thoughts of Poppea
incoherent, inarticulate babble. Although Nerone deliver
duet, it is his compatriot who orchestrates the musical ex
extended melismas on cantiam and amorose for Nerone,
imitative sections and parallel homophonic duet passages f
associated with the Venetian love duet.29 As Lucano draws
image of Poppea's voluptuous mouth, the latter is reduce
the sheer power of such a vision. Nerone becomes in
thoughts of his beloved, repeating the word bocca over a desc
symbol of heightened eroticism) between C and G (see Ex
mercy of Lucano's direction and, by the final section of t
'Ahi destin', repeating the isolated, already high-pitched
ing tessitura. This rhetorical pattern occurs four times

25 See Suzanne Cusick, 'Gendering Moder Music: Thoughts on the Montever

American Musicological Sociey, 46 (1993), 1-25 at 5 and 12.
26 The members of the Accademia, an esoteric group of no small importance f
opera, were profoundly interested in the position of women in society. The dan
some of the most popular topics for discussion. See Ellen Rosand, 'Barbara Stro
poser's Voice', Journal of the American Musicological Society, 31 (1978), 241-81 at 24
27 See Giovanni Francesco Loredano, Opere (Venice, 1673), iii. 167. For the
Peter N. Miller, The Song of the Soul: Understanding 'Poppea' (Royal Musical Asso
As Wendy Heller has commented, women's rhetorical and political power were p
ity of the Venetian Republic, which was constructed as a 'male entity' (Heller,
28 Tim Carter has suggested that Busenello was probably influenced by A
translation of Lucan's poem, Farsaglia, poema heroico di M. Anneo Lucano di Cordub
Musical Theatre, 275.
29 For a discussion of the typical compositional devices used in the Venetia
Seventeenth-Century Venice: The Creation of a Genre (Berkeley, 1992), 338.
30 Wendy Heller suggests that the presence of the descending tetrachord her
erotic stimulation' (Heller, 'Tacito Incognito', 79).

26

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Ex. 9a. Act II, scene v, bars 67-95 (pp. 141-2)

67 NERONE

5 "88a4
LUCANO Boc - ca, boc - ca, boc- ca,
J
4? If - I * I I ?[2 ]
Boc - ca,

90 Jo I - I I[ - 2
ttK~~~~~~~~~~ 6
72

- t _ . J j ~ I - i[i] f r I[]
boc - ca, boc - ca, ahi,

boc- ca, boc- ca, che se ra - - gio- na,

~: r If
6 7 #t6
r '[?]
t

t- 75
ahi, ahi,

Q4[^ -----i
se ra- gio - na, o ri - - de, Con in- vi - si- bil

: [~] F 'r Ir ' I f- ro r 1

6 7 #6 # 6

78

-i? i^ ^ i- i- r I
ahi, _ de- stin, ahi,

frr-- J
ar- me pun - ge, e all' al - - ma Do-na fe-li-ci- ta,
I
: rr r' Ir Ir r
7 #6 t 6 5 #6 6
81

, -r tr I r f p i - I
ahi,_ de- stin,

FJ J J r yif r L ? 4 J I
- men - tre 1'uc ci - de. Boc - ca, boc- ca, che se mi

: r I r- r I ' o ' '

6 #6 t 6

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Ex. 9b. Act II, scene v, bars 67-95 (pp. 141-2)
84

- r r I - I- r I ahi, ahi,

por-ge La-sci-veg-gian - - - do il

9:r r r $f Ir f I
7 #6 t 6 7 #6 6

87

- I r Pr f l-'- , r I
ahi,_ de- stin, ahi,

4--r^r t p r j r irrf8rr'^r
te- ne- ro, te - - ne-ro ru-bi- no M'i- ne

:r rF i rI rr' I' '

#t5 6 7 #6 # 6

90

-P- ~ r i- r if . - i, ffr
ahi, ahi, ahi,

bria, i-ne-bria il cor di net- ta- re, net- ta - re, net - ta-re di - vi - no.

s7r#6
r lr
t
. 1t
6 7
T --I
#6

94

ahi, ahi de- sti - no!

~:^ I o

sings a florid melody below Nerone

occurrence of 'Ahi destin', Monteve
final rapturous cry, it is left to Luc

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 Wendy Heller has interpreted the latent homoeroticism in this all-male duet as
suggestive of the librettist and composer's endorsement of male homosocial bonds.31
I would argue, however, that Nerone's discursive and musical disempowerment as he
meditates on Poppea's feminine charms provides a subtle, but unmistakable, allusion to
the sexually double nature of Renaissance rhetoric. Through his dalliance with Poppea,
who proves to be a lethal combination of Lady Rhetoric and Circe, Nerone is reduced
to the passive, 'womanish' homosexual in his scene with Lucano not by the poet's famed
rhetorical skills, as Heller suggests, but rather by his lover's power as implied in the text;
it is the crisis of gender in the form of Poppea's externalization of phallic womanhood
and Nerone's conversion into passive, effeminate manhood that creates the spectre of
homosexuality within the opera.32 Nerone has become the unmanly rhetor enslaved to
Lady Rhetoric, the implication being that rhetoric retained specifically 'homosexual'
inflections for its Renaissance practitioners.33 I would, however, agree with Heller's
remark that Monteverdi 'celebrates the sensual in a homosocial-if not blatantly
homoerotic-world while simultaneously providing subtle warnings about the danger
of female sexuality', where the 'homoerotic' functions as an 'alternative' to the 'dangers
of the female mouth'.34 For it is the female mouth, the source of female speech and,
more specifically, the locus of love as persuasion, that renders its male practitioners
effeminate and, by extension, 'homosexual'.
After the first act, Poppea and Nerone do not appear together again until Act III,
scene v, perhaps because there remains little for the pair to do except renew their decla-
rations of love. The exchange 'Ne piu s'interporra noia o dimora' ('Neither hindrance
nor delay shall interfere') is also Poppea and Nerone's first love duet in the opera. As
such, the movement has important implications in terms of Monteverdi's musical char-
acterization of the two lovers. One would expect that Poppea, having already achieved
the repudiation of Ottavia and the death of Seneca, would be less manipulative of
Nerone here, whereas the following analysis reveals that, far from becoming the model
of passive femininity, Poppea continues to retain her status as the dominant musical
personality.
In Act III, scene v, female power is maintained on a variety of levels as Poppea,
Circe-like, employs all the effects of the erotic style to ensnare Nerone. Her initial solo in
C major is triumphant yet enticing, the high tessitura and triadic momentum providing
a perfect foil for the lyrical melisma on nova ('new'), which rises through the octave to
a top g" before marking the first perfect cadence in C. Poppea steers the tonality
towards A minor, the key of the impending duet, in a controlled manner via measured
rests and the protracted emphasis on the leading note of G#, before concluding the sec-
tion with a resolute perfect cadence in A minor.
As in her Act I encounter with Nerone, Poppea's dual-purpose rhetoric comprises
assertive, reasoned, major expressions with lyrical, alluring, and languid minor ambiguity.
Rather than constituting an expression of emotional sincerity, however, her lyrical effusive-
ness has become part of a higher scheme of manipulation. Poppea usurps male reason for
her own ends; when coupled with her sensual mode of declamation, it proves a lethal
3 See Heller, 'Tacito Incognito', 49. As she has pointed out, the phenomenon of male homoeroticism is a recurrent
theme throughout Busenello's poetic oeuvre (ibid.).
32 I am drawing upon the moder (but no less relevant) assertion here that there is a crisis of gender specific to queer
contexts. Incidentally, this would make L'incoronazione di Poppea a remarkably 'queer' opera. For further information on
social constructivism and gender performativity, see Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity
(New York and London, 1990).
33 For a discussion of the ways in which the practice of Renaissance rhetoric became associated with homosexual
'effeminacy', see Rebhor, The Emperor of Men's Minds, 181.
34 See Heller, 'Tacito Incognito', 84 and 90.

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combination for the uncertain Nerone, who becomes a mere pawn in Poppea's premed-
itated network of cause and effect.
When Nerone finally enters the scene at bar 28, the low pitch, melodic and harmonic
indecisiveness, and the seemingly strident rhythmic momentum all parody his futile
attempts at command-his music is fast developing into a discourse littered with empty
gestures. Poppea, still obsessive in her claim to Nerone's affections as well as his throne,
pursues her lover relentlessly with 'In parola regal?' ('On your royal word?'). She takes
advantage of Nerone's lacklustre performance, redirecting his harmony towards her
own major key of C via the repeated emphasis on the leading note of Bi, thereby leaving
Nerone with no alternative but to make a dominant-tonic cadence in C (bb. 70-1) (see
Ex. 10). Poppea's persistence eventually pays off and, her wishes granted, she turns to a
sensual triple time as a prelude to the long-awaited love duet.

Ex. 10. Act III, scene v, bars 68-75 (p. 218)

68 POPPEA NERONE POPPEA

In pa - ro - la, inpa-ro -la... In pa-ro - la re- gal. In pa-

9:r T- j lo IJ l
72 a NERONE

-^ S2J n^8 p B p6 gB p
- ro - la re-gal? In pa-ro- la re-gal, in pa- ro- la

J f llfr J Jtl
IJ6IJr
4 3
j II
Although Nerone begi
dialogue at 'dal sen me
te, ben mio' ('Because o
incisive rhetoric, the E
Poppea, resourceful as e
cadencing in the tonic o
where Poppea, through
imitative exchange on 'c
a melodic 'sighing' figu
ancy. At this point, any
rather than Nerone, he
distinct lack of equality
Poppea launches the fi
penultimate bar, a calcu
Poppea's authority rem
the door to a garden of
to her charms. While I
apex of the lover's un
intimacy and love, ra

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Ex. 11. Act III, scene 5, bars 110-29 (p. 220)

110 POPPEA

R1 r 4f=r - I - j^ ' Ir r I
Per te, ben mi- o, per te, ben mi- o, non
NERONE

LJ - -t r I r ' 4 ' - 1
[se]-re- no, Per te, ben mi - o, non ho pii co - re in se no,

:r' $D Ifr r rI r r i -
3 6 6 6 7 6 - 6 4 t 6 76

116

bJ.LJ
ho piu co - rein se - no, ben mi - o, non ho pi co - re in se
4IJ
t |->- | rv _ ,._ I
r I r r r I
per te, ben mi - o, non ho piu co - re in se - no.

r' - 4r I lr r r - 6' r
122

iJ ? I - pp D r IP D p rr 1':
- no. Strin- ge-r6 tra le brac-cia in-na- mo- ra

A-p- p: p p L_ 8 ir pp :
Strin-ge-r6 tra le brac- cia, strin-ge-ro tra le brac-cia in-na-mo- ra - te_

- ; I; > Pytr ?r 'I:

6 5 6 6 4 3

126

#e-Fr-r- r - T- r F -[H
- te Chi mi tra - fis - se... ohi - - m!

Chi mi tra - fis - se... ohi - - m,

:.. . J l. J 1, 1Q?I J
6 6 7 6

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Ex. 12. Act III, scene v, bars 161-5 (p. 222)

161 POPPEA

[per]- du - ta es - - ser, es
NERONE

j
[per]-
C du-
r to
- es
1t
- ser,
r I
} : J I
6

163

e J .1 Y J' II
- ser vo - - gl'i o.

es - ser vo gl o. __

6
j 7
2j
6 5 6
I5
,1
#
I
4

manipulation, is questionable.35 Despite the build-up of ground bass and ostinato, which
induces the quality of sustained affect, Poppea continues to dominate Nerone, while he
is still unable to provoke the kind of musical action that would make this duet more
equalizing and less under Poppea's control. The last of Poppea's 'political manipula-
tions' may be over, as Chafe puts it,36 but her seduction of Nerone is portrayed as an
ongoing process; she still has the task of keeping him. Poppea's manipulation is, for
Monteverdi, not a means to an end but rather an end in itself. The composer revises
Busenello's text in the Poppea-Nerone scenes for one reason: the characterization of
Poppea and, by extension, rhetoric itself as a Circe-like temptress with the power to
emasculate her male counterparts or, in this case, practitioners. It is Monteverdi, not
Busenello, who makes Poppea's rhetoric transgressive. If we are to accept Poppea's
musical empowerment as compositional intent, then we must ask why the composer
goes against this particular trend in the Finale, where, as we shall see, song becomes the
basis of power for Nerone rather than for Poppea. Can we account for the unexpected
shift in gender ideology within the Finale without resorting to the possibility of an alternative
composer or composers for this scene? No discussion of the issues surrounding the
authorship of L'incoronazione di Poppea is complete until we have at least attempted to
resolve this musical-rhetorical paradox. Let us first consider the music itself.
What is particularly striking about the opening scene of the Finale (Act III, scene viii)
is that Nerone is musically authoritative throughout. The lyrical ascent in his vocal line,
as the melody rises through a series of florid melismas on blandita ('flattered') and glorie
('glories') to a top g" at bar 32, before ending with a decisive perfect cadence, demonstrate

35 See Chafe, Monteverdi's Tonal Language, 299.

36 Ibid. 300.

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consummate musical-rhetorical artistry (see Ex. 13).37 When Poppea enters, however,
her tentative, low-pitched, and tonally wayward phrases contrast sharply with Nerone's
newly acquired imperial stature. Although the text talks of Poppea being 'confused' ('La mia
mente confusa' / 'My confused mind'), the audience may recall that the heroine
claimed to be similarly 'overwhelmed' in Act I, scene iii, while nonetheless maintaining
her status as the dominant musical personality. Yet here, Poppea is unable to find the
musical language with which to express her feelings. The chromatic bass in E minor
(bb. 54-5; see Ex. 14) discloses a tonal ambivalence which, while wholly in keeping with
cultural representations of femininity, is in direct opposition to the audience's view of
Poppea as a manipulative and reasoned seductress.

Ex. 13. Act III, scene viii, bars 12-14 (p. 230)

12 NERONE

Blan- di - - - ta dal-le glo - - ri- e

t")~~~~ " ^ |6Pr

Ex. 14. Act III, scene viii, bars 54-6 (p. 232)

54 POPPEA

hY ^^pp ppp p a; p p X r _ - r
Do- ve-va la na-tu - ra, Al so- pra- piui de-gli ec-ces- si vi af -

6 6 t

Poppea's
confiden
lute per
D minor
superto
abrupt
statemen
inant ch
phrase i
phrases
'masculine' resolution.
To summarize, then, the rhetorical interaction between Poppea and Nerone in the
opening scene of the Finale contrasts sharply with that of Acts I to III. Throughout the
main body of the opera Monteverdi manipulates Busenello's text in order that the rela-
tionship between Poppea and Nerone be represented as an ideological gender subversion:
it is Poppea who establishes control over Nerone through a variety of musical-rhetorical
37 Alan Curtis argues that the lombardic snaps of bars 12-13, which are characteristic ofFerrari and his contemporaries,
are relatively rare or unknown among the works of Monteverdi and his generation. See Curtis, 'La Poppea Impasticciata', 35.

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Ex. 15. Act III, scene viii, bars 91-7 (p. 235)

91

Da li - cen - za, da li - cen-za al mio spir - to, Ch'e- sca dal-l'a - mo -

pbt"" Ir r $ r F'
6 6

93

- ro- so la- be-rin - to Di tan- te lo-die tan- te, E che s'u-mi - lii a

666 6 6

96

jSJ 2 22J. I.[t]1 .t . , '

te, co- me con-vie - ne, Mio re, mio

:F J 3[]J. I I
2 t6 t

devices. Nerone,
unpredictable, wh
plined passion, as
ing scene of the
alternative Nerone from the one whose vacillations and childish recalcitrance we have
followed throughout the opera. Busenello's libretto, in other words, is not subjected to
the same kind of musical alteration in the Finale as it is on previous occasions in L'incor
onazione. Why has Nerone suddenly become irrefutably articulate, while Poppea is so
transfigured that her famed rhetorical skills and machinations have degenerated int
the mercurial behaviour that typifies patriarchal constructions of femininity? In wha
amounts to a conventional (implicitly heterosexist) realignment of the binary frame
Nerone now embodies the rhetorical artistry that once belonged to Poppea. This dras
tic digression and alarming sense of inconsistency both in the characterizations and in
the rhetorical discourse as Poppea becomes humble, almost overwhelmed, befor
Nerone's imperial stature, suggests little more than romantic idealism. Has Poppea,
the manipulative seductress, suddenly reverted from the scheming courtesan to the
model of passive, docile femininity? Such sentimental sophistry, beautiful as it may be
does not adhere to the subversive gender ideologies (i.e. weak male characters) th
underpin the opera.
Tim Carter has suggested that Nerone's recent acts of clemency (Ottone, Ottavia,
and Drusilla all deserve immediate death for treason-any seventeenth-century audi-
ence would have acknowledged this outcome-but are offered exile instead), as an
example of (good) royal behaviour, go some distance towards making the end of the
38 Fenlon and Miller, The Song of the Soul, 48.

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work more palatable.39 Though persuasive, his theory does not entirely resolve the problem
of characterization. As he later admits, the more than likely possibility of Poppea as anti-
Roman propaganda is consistent with the apparent hostility between Venice and Rome
dating from before the Interdict of 1606.40 In the light of the current antagonism
between the two states, then, Nerone's sudden clemency or growing up to 'manly' maturity
is not so plausible after all.
The reason advanced by Carter for Poppea's sudden loss of erotic power over Nerone in
the opening scene of the Finale-all her wishes have been granted by the end of Act I, leav-
ing her with very little else to do within the opera41-is also questionable; the Act III duet
discussed above sees Poppea still using the seductive power of song to control Nerone, in
spite of the fact that her ambitious plans came to fruition much earlier within the opera.
To confuse matters further, the fact that Poppea is apotheosized as Venus on earth in
the Finale provides a clear allusion to her rhetorical empowerment in earlier scenes; not
only were rhetorical ornaments labelled 'veneres', which summons up the goddess
Venus,42 but the kind of eloquence that Poppea exhibits was itself perceived as quasi-
divine. Cicero celebrates rhetoric as a queen (regina) with the ability to rule among men
as if she were a goddess,43 an idea also taken up by seventeenth-century rhetoricians. In
his 1603 discourse on eloquence, Cesare Ripa describes Eloquenza: 'A beautiful young
woman with her breast armoured and her arms bare will have on her head a helmet
surrounded by a crown of gold and at her flank a staff, in her right hand a rod, in he
left a lightning bolt, and she will be dressed in purple.'44 By drawing attention to the colour
of the dress, which is that of imperial purple, Ripa self-consciously underscores the
political nature of rhetoric. Given that Poppea, as an amalgamation of the goddes
Venus and Lady Rhetoric,45 becomes a 'queen of people's spirits', who 'spurs them on
reins them in, and bends them in that way which pleases her most',46 her sudde
musical disempowerment in the Finale seems highly implausible, to say the least. Poppe
is destined to control Nerone; her becoming empress should be a triumph of Love as
persuasion over the social and, more specifically, the gender order. This is the 'mutation
described by Amore at the end of the Prologue. The patriarchal retribution exacted
in the opening scene of the Finale postulates a moral and ethical not to mention
rhetorical-outlook significantly at odds with the opera as a whole.
Such dramatic inconsistencies are worryingly amplified in the concluding love due
for Poppea and Nerone. In 'Pur ti miro' ('Now I gaze on you'), whose text is known no
to have been written by Busenello,47 'love' retains a specific musical language with whic
to convey its affective potential, consisting of musical devices that eventually came to
comprise the Baroque catalogue of affects.48 These became the arias of the affections o
39 See Carter, Monteverdi's Musical Theatre, 274.
40 See Tim Carter, 'Re-Reading Poppea: Some Thoughts on Music and Meaning in Monteverdi's Last Opera', Journ
ofthe Royal MusicologicalAssociation, 122 (1997), 173-204 at 173.
41 Carter, Monteverdi's Musical Theatre, 274.
42 See n. 21 above.
43 Ibid. 38.
44 Ripa, Iconologia, 126. Translated in Rebhorn, The Emperor of Men's Minds, 64.
4S This is certainly consistent with Suzanne Cusick's observations in 'Gendering Modern Music'. She notes how in th
'Seconda Pratica', which was based on the relationship between music and words ('oratione'), Monteverdi defends th
madrigal exclusively in terms of its 'oratione' or rhetoric, thereby claiming the power and importance of 'oratione' as
Lady ruler (p. 8). Cusick subsequently hypothesizes that 'oratione' represents a 'troubling affirmation of music's associ
tions with the feminine' (p. 25).
46 See Cesare Ripa's description of Rettorica, or Lady Rhetoric, in his Iconologia, 126-7.
47 Benedetto Ferrari has been named as the author of the text of 'Pur ti miro' (Curtis, 'La Poppea Impasticciata', 42).
48 Aesthetic theory in the High Baroque culminated in the 'doctrine of affections', which, by the time it had attained
its elaborative potential in the 18th c., comprised a substantial catalogue of affects and compositional devices with which
to convey these emotional states to the listener.

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the late Baroque, which focused upon a single, specific affect or emotion. In 'Pur ti
miro', the relationship between Poppea and Nerone is dependent on a partnership of
equality. The text is expanded considerably to invoke repetition and melismatic exten-
sion, while brief motivic exchanges and prolonged imitative passages culminate in parallel
movement in thirds and sixths enriched by suspensions resolving into unisons.49 As Ellen
Rosand suggests, 'the interdependence of lines, perfect consonance and ultimate union
are all the qualities that represented or imitated the relationship between lovers'.50
Graceful melodic shaping and piquant dissonances affectively underscore 'grief and
'sorrow', while the overlap in tessitura on 'piu non peno' ('no more grief) (bb. 354-5)
provides a consummate rendition of the large-scale rhetorical affect, the languorous
harmonies recalling the bittersweet nature of love (see Ex. 16). Of particular note here is
the way in which the composer subdivides the melodic line between the two parts, a
symbolic gesture designed to represent the intimacy of the lovers, suggesting their desire
for unity as the two hearts become one (see Ex. 17).

Ex. 16. Act III, scene viii, 'Pur ti miro', bars 354-6 (p. 257)

354 POPPEA

I f -1 - r - -J r d ^ j
- no, Piu non mo - - ro,non mo - ro, O mia vi - ta,
NERONE

-
4"j'~ ~r ~i ir r If
ro, Piu non pe - - no,

f' r Ir r r' I'

- 6 7 6

While a m
standard lo
both sexu
is depicted
emotions o
the two l
Venetian
political p
of a delu
where af
Montever
Baroque m
lavished o
from the
composer
is affectiv
not what
quarian ar
of early s
49 As Ellen R
little importan
50 Ibid.

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Ex. 17. Act III, scene viii, 'Pur ti miro', bars 361-9 (p. 258)

_ - 361iP O P ? ^ r r POPP
Io son tua... Spe- me mia
NERONE

Q$ - i- i J__ LJ i t i r Tuo son io... dil - lo,

r:[$6 r f T r' C I
5 6 4 3 3 6 4 3

364

j r]r I r I - J - J J r It F r r I M
dil - lo, di, spe- me mia dil- lo, di,

$1 ! t f r i i t 4 I ? I
di, Tu sei pur, L'i- dol mio, tu sei

:[] F' lF ' If ' J 1C J I

6 4t 4 4 #

367

4["] ? r r X 1? r L U f
L'i- dol mio, Tu sei pur, Si, mio ben,

pur, dil - lo, di, 'i - dol mio, Si, mio

IJ. - ' If r T I 4 3 6 5 6

L'incoronazione di Popp
miro', the wholesale t
greater realism in cha
tion of the affections
lihood, the result of
progressively anticipa
itself was becoming pub
well-worn cliche that

51 As Tim Carter has pointed

ground from 'speech', 'where
opera' (Carter, 'Re-Reading P
ground' at a time when opera
success was chiefly dependent

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moves from the specific to the general as a means of generating popular consensus?
Who, if indeed any of us, fails to be seduced by the stereotypical 'fairy tale' ending? But
is 'Pur ti miro' really that persuasive as the grand climax to L'incoronazione?
As Robert Ketterer has pointed out, the convention of the 'tragedia di lieto fine', or
'happy ending', was far from commonplace in operas about Nero, where the general
corruption of the characters usually resulted in comic irony and satire.52 Indeed, the world
of Nero as it was presented in Roman literature of the time by the satirists Juvenal and
Petronius, a world that both Busenello in his libretto and Monteverdi in his score seek to
recapture, was one full of florid rhetorical gesture where detached irony placed the
actions of characters within a comical, and largely satirical, framework. This follows a
dramatic pattern that Northrop Frye terms 'ironic comedy', a genre that reflects more on
the society it depicts than on the individuals it punishes.53 A dramatic prototype such as
this is consonant with the opera's use of a particular history, where the character of Poppea
embodies a multitude of negative views about female ambition and its disruptive sexual
appeal. The opera is not a triumph of love over asceticism, as is often argued, but a satirical
commentary on love as persuasion, a supposition that the music (apart from the Finale)
firmly endorses. Because satire derives generic definition from the play of symbolic inver-
sion, which is central to literary notions of irony, parody, and paradox,54 in Poppea we are
presented with a realm where power structures are dramatically overturned and genders
dismantled. The Incogniti believed that love, which was based entirely on appearances,55
was little more than 'a plague and a defect, not an affect, of the heart'.56 One Incogniti
member describes the violent, often uncontrollable, effects of love in deliberately emotive
language, which, whether intentionally or otherwise, also recalls seventeenth-century
discussions of rhetoric as tyrannical ruler over the affections: 'Oh, God! And what good
does Love bring to lovers? Guidance? It is blind. Riches? It is naked. Counsel? It is a
child. Firmness? It flies. Peace? It is armed. Justice? It is a tyrant.'57 Like love, rhetoric was
perceived by Renaissance writers as a madness by which its followers were seized or held
and, like love, the reliance of rhetoric on its ability to arouse passion rendered such an
artifice inherently unstable, unpredictable, and even destructive in its consequences.58
For the Incogniti, love as persuasion became the ultimate harbinger of deception and
masquerade, famed for its potential not only to turn the world upside down but for its
Circean ability to transform the appearance of things. The fact that Renaissance rhetoric
was also figured as feminine not only made it a politically dangerous entity but a serious
threat to a male-dominated social order. In L'incoronazione, the illusory nature of appear-
ances, as representing the ultimate seduction from the truth, is embodied by the enticing,
deceptive figure of Poppea. Through her coronation, the spectacle of imperial power at
the heart of Renaissance rhetoric59 is transformed into a fantasy of gender mobility in

52 Robert C. Ketterer, 'Neoplatonic Light and Dramatic Genre in Busenello's L'Incoronazione di Poppea and Noris's II
Ripudio D'Ottavia', Music & Letters, 80 (1999), 1-22 at 22.
53 Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (Princeton, 1957), 165. Robert Ketterer has applied Frye's critical
methodology to L'incoronazione di Poppea (Ketterer, 'Neoplatonic Light and Dramatic Genre', 12-13).
54 Barbara A. Babcock, 'Introduction', in ead. (ed.), The Reversible World: Symbolic Inversion in Art and Society (Ithaca and
London, 1978), 13-36 at 16.
55 Of the various discourses published on aspects of romantic love by members of the Incogniti, all reveal a serious
attempt to understand the nature of love. For further information, see Fenlon and Miller, The Song of the Soul.
56 In the preface to Novelle amorose de' Signori Academici Incognitipublicate da Francesco Carmeni, segretario dell'Academia (Venice,
1641): 'e una pesta, & un difetto, non un'affetto del cuore'. For other Incogniti statements on Love, see Fenlon and
Miller, The Song of the Soul, 35.
57 Pietro Michiele, 'I biasmi d'Amore', in Discorsi academici de' signori Incogniti, havuti in Venetia nell'academia dell'illustrissimo
signor Gio: Francesco Loredano (Venice, 1645), 52. Translated in Fenlon and Miller, The Song of the Soul, 35.
58 Rebhorn, The Emperor of Men's Minds, 188.
59 Ibid. 16.

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which the female not only rises up to meet but actually comes to dominate the male in
the sexual hierarchy. Poppea drastically alters multiple orders-both gendered and
social-through her erotic power over Nerone. Strange, then, that the music of the
Finale should depict her as weak and passive, the love-struck heroine 'silenced' in the
face of her lover's magnanimity. The question is: would the Act III, scene v duet
between Poppea and Nerone discussed above constitute a more appropriate resolution
to their topsy-turvy partnership, as opposed to the righting of inverted power relations
and the romantic idealism with which it is replaced in the Finale?60
Any Venetian audience watching 'Poppea' would have recognized that the heroine's
scheming would lead to her eventual downfall.6' According to the Finale, however,
Poppea is resurrected as the model of passive femininity, in which case her subsequent
fate would appear both undeserved and implausible. While the moral message at the
end of Act III of L'incoronazione di Poppea is that the necessary (and justified?) retributions
have been exacted on those characters deserving of their punishment, Poppea is singu-
larly subjected to a silent retribution in the minds of the audience. The purgation of
their emotions is withheld here, the opera going far beyond the Aristotelian conception
of tragedy in its ability to arouse pity and fear in the audience,62 a dramatic resolution in
keeping with the concerns of the Incogniti, who believed that great success was always
of short duration. Indeed, the following remarks by Federico Malipiero (1642), a con-
temporary of Busenello and Monteverdi, on the subject of Tacitus' Agrippina could just
as easily be applied to Poppea herself:

This was the greatness of a woman, incomparable in every way. Thus did she fall from supreme
eminence to the darkest depths because the higher mortals rise, the more they are subject to
uncertainty. Empires are transformed in a flash, like human happiness, which can collapse and
be extinguished in a single moment... This is the inconstancy of things produced by mortality.
The most fallacious and vain plans are those built on human fortune.63

As Ellen Rosand points out, with its emphasis on the illusory triumph of love, the work
of Malipiero provides a context for the interpretation of Monteverdi's final opera.64
Nino Pirrotta meanwhile has suggested that 'Love's victory is, historically as well, an
unstable and temporary victory, and perhaps Monteverdi had a second drama in mind
to show its transitory nature'.65 One might similarly argue that the restoration of male
power and authority in L'incoronazione di Poppea should, like the punishment of Poppea
herself, be placed outside the time-frame of the work. If we accept this reading of the
opera as the actual intent of Monteverdi, then the composer or composers of the Finale
who finished what Monteverdi may have left incomplete perhaps envisaged Nerone's
musical empowerment as a defence of the composer's masculinity, one that reclaimed

60 Perhaps it is worth noting here that the key in which the Act III duet for Poppea and Nerone ends (A minor) was
used by Monteverdi as the key of love in his previous opera, Ulisse. See Chafe, Monteverdi's Tonal Language, 324.
61 As Susan McClary observes, reiterating Nino Pirrotta, 'Monteverdi's audience would have been all too aware of
Poppea's ultimate fate-Nerone murdered the pregnant Poppea by kicking her in the stomach-and could, therefore,
have supplied the missing patriarchal retribution to the apparent triumph at the close of the opera' (Feminine Endings, 50).
62 According to Aristotle, it is through plot that tragedy performs its purgative function; by its organic unity and its
implicit universality, a story works upon the feelings of the audience. It is the ability of drama to arouse the emotions of
'pity' and 'fear' in an audience that ultimately makes for a convincingly 'moral' entertainment. See The Complete Works of
Aristotle, ed. Jonathan Barnes (Princeton, 1984), ii. 2323. For further information, see id., The Greek Philosophers: Socrates,
Plato andAristotle (Oxford, 1999), 296.
63 Federico Malipiero, L'Imperatrice ambiziosa (Venice, 1642), 184. The work of Malipiero as a context for the under-
standing of 'Poppea' is discussed in Rosand, 'Seneca and the Interpretation of L'Incoronazione di Poppea', 51-2.
64 Ibid. 52.
65 Nino Pirrotta, Music and Culture in Italy fom the Middle Ages to the Baroque (Cambridge, Mass., 1984), 267.

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the gendered body of rhetoric for an exclusive male audience. In doing so, they have
casually pre-empted Monteverdi's hypothetical 'second drama'.
An examination of the evolving relationship between Poppea and Nerone within
L'incoronazione di Poppea strongly suggests that the Finale was written by a composer
other than Monteverdi. How else are we to reconcile the paradoxical nature of Love
as persuasion in the form of Nerone's musical empowerment and the affective nature
of 'Pur ti miro', without entertaining the distinct possibility of L'incoronazione as the
product of compositional collaboration? Perhaps, as Eric Chafe puts it, the pivotal
aesthetic issue here is whether or not we can 'abandon our ties to morality, to the
knowledge of what Poppea and Nerone have done', and to 'accept the apotheosis of
their love'.66 I cannot; for any 'transgressive' stance, such as that witnessed in Poppea, is
always historically and culturally relative, highly indicative of threatened ideological
positions. In L'incoronazione di Poppea, gender, rhetoric, and love are each shown to
be tenuous 'truths', as the opera is effectively turned into a musical debate on the
'gender' of rhetoric, the music playing with the gender of love as persuasion.67 The
obvious gender confusion encountered within the work's rhetoric can only confirm
that Monteverdi's last opera was written in response to the failure of that discourse to
save the art for its male practitioners.68 Whoever was responsible for constructing the
imagined 'truth' of gender in the Finale clearly did not share Monteverdi's delight in
rhetorical play.69
The restoration of so-called gender 'normativity' within the Finale may explain why
the end of L'incoronazione di Poppea has received such lavish praise and endorsement from
male musicologists anxious to refute the ambiguity of gender and, with it, secure the
false (heterosexual) binary. On the subject of the Finale of L'incoronazione di Poppea,
Michael Robinson waxes particularly lyrical: 'The end of L'Incoronazione di Poppea ...
where Nero and Poppea sing a love duet of such surpassing loveliness that all else is
forgotten... is one of those rare moments which provide a yardstick by which all opera
is eventually judged.'70 Surely it is opera's greatest irony, then, that arguably the most
beautiful love duet of all time is one of the most morally suspect and musically question-
able. Perhaps Amore was right all along: love really does change the world, a transfor-
mation at once both complete and irrevocable.

ABSTRACT

Focusing primarily upon Poppea's transgressive rhetoric, which

inside and outside ideologies of the feminine in Monteverdi's L'incoro
this article has two main objectives: first, to situate the gender confu
the Poppea-Nerone relationship within the context of the sexually d

66 Chafe, Monteverdi's Tonal Language, 299.

67 According to Tim Carter, such textual and musical debates were a basic feature of rhetoric
discussion for members of the Accademia degli Incogniti (Monteverdi's Musical Theatre, 277).
68 For a discussion of the ways in which Renaissance rhetoric came under threat from the '
charges of'effeminacy', see Rebhom, The Emperor of Men's Minds, 181.
69 I am following Tim Carter here, who suggests that the ambivalence at the heart of L'incoro
strates 'a pleasure in rhetorical play that may be the valedictory message of Monteverdi's last o
Musical Theatre, 204).
70 Michael F. Robinson, Opera before Mozart (London, 1966), 160.

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Renaissance rhetoric and, secondly, to locate these findings within the much broader
issue of 'Who wrote the music to L'incoronazione di Poppea?' Arguing for an alternative
composer or composers for the Finale, I suggest that the patriarchal retribution wit-
nessed here in the form of Nerone's musical empowerment, when coupled with the
affective nature of the final love duet, 'Pur ti miro', postulates a rhetorical outlook
significantly at odds with the opera as a whole.

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