VIDEO: Get A First Look At The Met's Agrippina: “Come nube che fugge dal vento”

Kate Lindsey sings an excerpt from Nerone's Act III aria in the final dress rehearsal. Production: Sir David McVicar.

Handel's tale of intrigue and impropriety in ancient Rome receives its first Met performances, with star mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato as the controlling, power-hungry Agrippina and Harry Bicket conducting. Sir David McVicar's production ingeniously reframes the action of this black comedy about the abuse of power to "the present," where it should loudly resonate. The all-star cast features mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey as Agrippina's son and future emperor Nerone, soprano Brenda Rae as the seductive Poppea, countertenor Iestyn Davies as the ambitious officer Ottone, and bass Matthew Rose as the weary emperor Claudius.

This early Italian opera of Handel was a success that secured the composer's international reputation and played a large role in paving the way for his lucrative and high-profile subsequent career in London. While he continued to develop artistically for the next 50 years, his entire life's genius is perfectly evident in this first great operatic accomplishment. Even today, the issues at stake in Agrippina-the power plays, sexual politics, and cults of personality played out against a fickle public-continue to resonate.

George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) was born in Germany, trained extensively in the music capitals of Italy, and spent most of his brilliant career in London. While his great choral and orchestral works have remained extraordinarily popular up to the present day, his theatrical creations, which were instrumental in introducing Italian opera to the British public. Vincenzo Cardinal Grimani (1652 or 1655-1710) was a career diplomat who also supplied libretti for opera composers, the text for Agrippina being his most famous.

Agrippina was originally set in Rome, late in the reign of the Emperor Claudius (d. 54 C.E.), but Sir David McVicar's staging updates the action to the current day: an era in which sly posturing and sometimes-questionable tactics continue to drive political discourse.

Handel's inventive musical approach is the perfect vehicle to delve into the complex ideas of this drama: Like imperial corruption itself, the score can dazzle with elegant splendor even while exposing the devious machinations under the surface. Although there are more ensembles scattered throughout the score than Handel gave to his later operas, the basic unit of this opera is, like those others, the da capo aria. The musical miracle is in the diversity of expression that Handel achieves within this structure. As in all of the composer's operas, supreme vocal virtuosity is expected and required to express the drama, nowhere more on display than in Agrippina's climactic fury aria "Pensieri, voi mi tormentate."

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