“Creating operas out of real events, whether in the recent or more distant past, is almost as old as the art form itself. It began in 1643 when Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea, set in Rome in AD 64, was staged in Venice, though in the baroque and early classical operas that followed over the next century and a half, hard historical fact and more distancing fantasy were frequently inextricably merged.”