English Touring Opera starts its first season under new General Director Robin Norton-Hale with Monteverdi’s The Coronation of Poppea, in a new version created by ETO by conductor Yshani Perinpanayagam and librettist Helen Eastman – and it shows.

The prologue, with Virtue and Fortune arguing over who has most influence over humans, interrupted by Love (Keith Pun) who says he has, sounds positively lush and romantic. 

It’s a bit more baroque when Otton appears outside Poppea’s house, lamenting that she has thrown him over for Nero. Basia Bínkowska’s minimal set has a wall with a walkway above for the supercilious gods, and a large circle cut out, which acts as a door, a pillar for leaning against and hiding behind, and a low, roundish shape which acts as seat, table, pool, dais, as the case may be. Charlie Morgan Jones creates the atmosphere with very effective lighting.

Feargal Mostyn-Williams looks ill-at-ease as Otton, which may be the libretto. In the programme, Eastman hopes we’ll barely notice the translation; not so – Otton’s words are fitted awkwardly to the music and it sounds clunky. Alternatively, it may be deliberate, to contrast him with the all-powerful Nero, who soon emerges from Poppea’s bed in a gold velvet suit. Martha Jones sings the part well, but it is the sensual liquidity of Jessica Cale’s voice (Poppea) which draws the attention.

Meanwhile, Nero’s wife is lamenting her husband’s neglect. Kezia Bienek’s Ottavia is elegant in a caped dress, and sings beautifully as well, rejecting out of hand the consolations of philosophy proffered by Seneca. Trevor Eliot Bowes is an imposing presence as Seneca, with a nicely-rounded bass voice which seems to ground the narrative. Nero’s insouciant dismissal of Seneca’s advice – don’t divorce Ottavia and marry Poppea – turns to vindictiveness when Poppea tells him that Seneca has been mouthing off about Nero, and the first half ends with Seneca embracing death by suicide, forewarned by a visit from Theo Perry’s Mercury.

Nero’s friend Lucano (Zahid Siddiqui) is a dead-ringer for Klinger in M*A*S*H, wearing a gold kilt and knee-high boots with heels, topped with a turquoise jacket, while Nero is in black lurex. Meanwhile, Ottavia subverts Otton – who has given in to the importuning of Poppea’s friend, Drusilla and agreed to marry her – to murder Poppea, getting close in disguise as a woman. Elizabeth Karani’s Drusilla is the only character who shows any sort of development, from simpering and fawning over Otton, to an iron will taking the blame – and the threatened punishment – when the plot is discovered, to spare Otton (and, thereby, Ottavia). Her voice changes too from sweetness to sober determination. But in vain, for Otton ‘fesses up.

Arnalta, the older companion of Poppea, is forthright, watching over her darling’s ascent to the Imperial throne. Amy J Payne makes the most of it, though she does take some time to leave the lovers alone when at last all impediments are removed. In Ottavia’s aria, when banished from Rome, Bienek’s singing is so eloquent.

And so, to the moment all those who know the opera have been waiting for – the finale Pur ti miro. The translation works, and the voices intertwine, but the staging – perhaps because of the intimacy coordinator – keeps Nero and Poppea largely apart, and the curtain falls with Poppea standing in the circular opening and Nero standing on the dais on the other side of the stage.