Recorded in the Church of San Carlo, Modena, September 2009.

This recording from La Venexiana unchains those passions stirred originally with the arrival of one of the most dazzling masterworks of Baroque musical theatre: Il Nerone, ossia L’incoronazione di Poppea. For a long time attributed only to the exceptional talents of Claudio Monteverdi, today this opera is considered additionally to be the result of the combined contributions of various composers over a period of time, among them being Francesco Cavalli, Benedetto Ferrari and Francesco Sacrati. Following directly after a recent La Venexiana staged production, Glossa and the ensemble of Claudio Cavina present here a highly-charged reading of the art of Monteverdi and his heritage, as transmitted by him and through composers after him – an art which created, enlivened and ultimately completely changed the musical world of their times. Back in September 2008 Claudio Cavina of La Venexiana received a second Gramophone Award when their recording of Montevedi's L'Orfeo was voted by the UK magazine's critics as the winner in the Baroque Vocal category. This year at the Midem Classical Awards in January it was another recording from that extensive Glossa Monteverdi series, the Quinto libro dei madrigali, which received an accolade in the Early Music category. La Venexiana has now completed its survey of all nine books of madrigals and is turning its attention to other areas of Monteverdi’s output. The group received its first Gramophone Award in 2001 for of Gesualdo's Il quarto libro di madrigali.The strengths of the Italian ensemble in this repertoire owe much to their innate understanding of their native language.

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“The star of the show is the splendid Seneca (Raffaele Costantini), and there are notable cameos from Romina Tomasoni (Venus and Pallas), and Makoto Sakurada (as Ottavia's nurse). There is plenty of variety in the instrumental accompaniments” BBC Music Magazine

“Mameli as Nero is as imperious as you could wish, and Emanuela Galli’s Poppea is believably seductive; the way they linger over the final love duet is extreme, but utterly entrancing...but the most colourful turn of all is the instrumental group, whose continuo playing and musical punctuation is deliciously colourful and joyfully flamboyant, a constant source of delight and fascination.” BBC