Poppaea Sabina that it is not a drama that promotes the triumph of virtue. Poppaea is portrayed as cynically plotting to become empress of Rome by manipulating the emperor Nero into marrying her, and her machinations include the execution of Seneca the Younger, who opposes her plans, which are successful at the end of the drama. Poppaea is a principal character also in Handel's opera "Agrippina" of 1709, but as a victim, not a perpetrator, of deceit and manipulation. Here the schemer is Agrippina, Nero's mother, intent on promoting her son's claim to the throne. Poppaea, the ingenue, is portrayed as the
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover intellectual films. "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover" is the twelfth album release by Michael Nyman and the ninth to feature the Michael Nyman Band. The album includes the first commercially released recording of "Memorial". There is some music not included on the soundtrack album: the love theme for Michael and Georgina, which is "Fish Beach" from "Drowning by Numbers", the song performed as a show in the restaurant, sung by actress and singer Flavia Brilli, or a doubly pulsed variation of "Memorial" that occurs about halfway through the film. Edits of "Memorial" appear throughout the film,