Agrippina the opera may thus appear as a bizarrely comic prequel to a nightmarish era of Roman history, as its producer for the Met, David McVicar, seems to hint by putting the ensemble atop a row of funereal plinths at the end of the production. Only the servant Lesbus, a figure invented by Handel’s librettist Grimani, sits apart on the stage during the finale, laughing as the curtain descends. He holds a book in hand—a copy of Tacitus, as one discerns through opera glasses, in which these grim destinies can be read. He alone stands outside history, observing its perverse twists from an ironic distance.
Source : The Winking Satire of ‘Agrippina’
