Agrippina review: Timely take on Handel’s tale of scheming and skulduggery

Sexual shenanigans, political skulduggery, black humour: Handel’s Agrippina has all the ingredients for a racy Barrie Kosky production. And with Joyce DiDonato as the ruthless schemer in the title role, Franco Fagioli her emotionally arrested son Nerone and Lucy Crowe a shamelessly flirtatious Poppea, Kosky delivers.

Rebecca Ringst’s set, starkly neon-lit, reflects an alienating world of corporate power, with no concessions for the enchanting garden scene of Poppea, who has to feign sleep uncomfortably perched at the top of a flight of steps.

DiDonato presents a complex character: ambitious but tormented, seductive but lacking the capacity to love. Her performance, combining tonal radiance with showstopping bravura, is a tour de force. So is Crowe’s, who matches her for exotic changes of costume, and similarly alternates skirt-whirling, hair-tossing sex appeal with exquisitely floated lyricism. Fagioli’s tone throbs with Nerone’s decadent lust, but he too has a stunning technique. Abetted by Maxim Emelyanychev’s wonderfully expressive conducting of the OAE, he pushes the boundaries.

Iestyn Davies deploys a more conventional countertenor to no less expressive effect. Kosky’s characteristically manic staging embraces bedroom farce and a slinky floorshow for Agrippina with handheld mic; there are flashes of theatrical genius but rather too much crotch-grabbing and puerility. More than once, however, he clears the stage for a scene of heart-stopping tenderness.

Agrippina featues unscrupulously ambitious political figures who act recklessly and an emotionally stunted would-be ruler. Kosky’s setting may be modern but he resists the temptation to draw too-obvious parallels.

This is a world that nevertheless seems worryingly familiar.

Until Oct 11 (020 7304 4000, roh.org.uk)