This is the one where at the premiere Francesca Cuzzoni was Poppaea to Faustina Bordoni's Octavia. The Rival Queens opens with an aria from it!

It starts with Agrippina-Poppaea doubling (Nero gives Agrippina's place at the reception of the Armenian embassy to Poppaea).

This opera portrays Octavia as in love with Nero and I think it is awful. Girl get up! you are a Caesar too! do civil war!

Poppaea told Agrippina "I do not really want to sleep with Nero, can you take me to your bedroom?". Girl spoke her mind.

And then Nero walks in on Poppaea kneeling before Octavia, in a composition reminiscent of Britannicus and Junia in Racine's Britannicus. Some other scenes of this opera are pulled directly from Racine's Britannicus so we can be sure the reference is intentional. Poppaea said "I will fuck your wife AND your mother".

Poppaea's characterisation in this opera - think Seymour from Donizetti's Anna Bolena and you will hit the mark. There are even textual similarities.

Agrippina said she is going to follow Nero "like a hunter chases a beast".

Nero and Poppaea are riding a (presumably huge) chariot pulled by a "large elephant".

The "large elephant" turned out to be a Trojan-type construct with gladiators for the spectacle hidden inside. And the chariot turns into an amphitheatre.

Agrippina is now waiting next to Nero's room; says she is "lying in wait in front of the beast's burrow".

Poppaea begs Nero not to divorce Octavia, says "without his wife, Nero can never please me". Girl.

Agrippina takes the decree of Octavia's banishment, tears it to pieces and throws it in Narcissus' face with "Let's go, Octavia. If Nero condemns you, Agrippina absolves you".

Here is one of Agrippina's arias, by the way: Tutta furie e tutta sdegno.

Poppaea calls Nero a snake in the grass.

Narcissus, when talking about the ill-fated Octavia, says "Chi nacque per perir, perirà sempre" (One born to perish will always perish). Which is a shadow of Cornelia's line in Giulio Cesare in Egitto: "Chi nacque a sospirar, piange per sempre" (One born to sigh will weep forever).

Agrippina calls Octavia "a naked ghost of an empress, wandering these halls". Octavia is still alive.

The production is heavy on scenic machinery, with Narcissus as Nero's "special effects man" who also describes things as they happen.

The last scene is Agrippina in the throne room (sic) surrounded by four assassins. She says her famous last words ("Strike my belly"), carefully chooses the place of her death "exactly under the throne, so Nero, to ascend it for new crimes, will have to trample over my corpse", and orders the assassins to fulfill her commands. The curtain falls "just as they approach to murder her". Hell of a finale, stage director Agrippina real.

UK’s Largest Clean Air Mural Is Completed After 3 Weeks

French street artist Nerone has created the UK's largest clean-air mural in Southampton. Painted on The Bulb, a new hub for the STEM community, the piece shows a woman covered in colorful flowers. And best of all, the nearly 11,000-square-foot mural is not only aesthetically pleasing but also environmentally friendly.

Mascagni at the piano plays "Nerone" (1932)