A behind-the-scenes look at a production of Handel’s 1709 opera performed at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden by the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin conducted by René Jacobs. Our heroine, Agrippina (soprano Alexandrina Pendatchanska), is wife of Claudius and mother of Nero, and the baddest of Handel’s bad girls: a Machiavellian mother figure obsessed with power and politics who ruthlessly shapes her son’s future. Capturing the electric and audacious musical spirit and psychological sophistication of Handel’s Venetian opera, Facing Agrippina documents a first-rate production designed by Christian Lacroix and directed by Vincent Boussard.