Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center – Family Circle, Seat
H220 ($45).
Conductor – Harry Bicket; Vitellia – Barbara Frittoli, Sesto
– Elina Garanca, Annio – Kate Lindsey, Tito – Giuseppe Filianoti, Servilla,
Lucy Crowe, Bublio, Oren Gradus.
Story. The emperor
Tito falls in love with Servilla (Sesto’s sister) but she is in love with
Annio. Servilla is brave enough to tell
Tito her true feelings and gets the blessing of the monarch. Vitellia, daughter of the emperor overthrown
by Tito, loves Sesto but vacillates between wanting to kill the king to wanting to marry him for the power. She convinces Sesto, who is a good friend of
the Tito, to assassinate him. Sesto
starts a rebellion but relents about killing the emperor. Sesto is condemned to death, but is granted
clemency by Tito after much deliberation on his part. Sesto and Vitellia marry
each other.
The story above quite accurately describes what happens in
the opera, but is not a synopsis as the story unfolds along multiple parallel
lines. The synopsis in the Program is
quite interesting: it basically contains a brief description of each aria and
recitative; it works quite well, though.
We had Thanksgiving dinner with the Yangs, and CS told me he
bought a single ticket to this Saturday performance in the Family Circle
section. Since Anne was going to be
going to lunch with her CCHC group, I decided to also buy a Family Circle
ticket ($35, plus $10 handling charge.) Anne and I were planning to go to another
opera that evening (see following blog.) That would mean in about 28 hours I
will have been inside a concert hall for more than 8 hours. I felt quite ready for it at that time.
The Saturday turned out to be a rather long one. We left our house at about 10:15 am so Anne
could make her lunch in Flushing, I then stopped by KFC for a quick bite, and
got into the Westside at around 12:30 pm, giving me enough time to pick up the
ticket, and to exchange the couple of La Clemenza di Tito tickets we already had (you read it right)
for another concert: we couldn’t make this one anyway as I expect to be out of
town. We were done with the evening at
about 11:45 pm, and didn’t get home until close to 1 am Sunday morning.
An objective listener would say it
was a great Mozart performance. The
orchestra sounded crisp, the way I like Mozart to be played. The voices were all great. The set was quite interesting. They had the same foreground (steps) that
could be transformed into different scenes with the right staging. They had a moving ship to transport Berenice
away, the whole scene took all of perhaps one minute. A bit overdone, in my opinion. I also appreciated the period costumes the
singers wore.
On the other hand, I am not a fan of Mozart (not in heavy
doses, anyway.) And this is an opera perhaps only a Mozart lover would
adore. The story itself is okay, but
doesn’t deserve the 2 plus hours it lasts.
The second half is especially problematic for me. They have already caught Sesto in his act, so
the entire Act is spent on Tito making up his mind, changing it, signing the
death warrant, and then tearing it up.
It reminds of this daisy petal “he loves me he loves me not” process. Just decide and get on with it already! For me the most aggravating thing is using
women to sing the roles of young men (Sesto and Annio.) In Annio’s case they also changed the color
of his wig which added to the confusion.
Given where I sat, I often couldn’t tell who was doing the singing, and
I was hopelessly lost when the two men sang with Vitellia at the same time.
A case of a perfectly executed performance not appreciated
by someone looking for something different.
In that regard I am glad I “saved” the more expensive seats for another
opera. I did move to Row D for the second half since the two seats next to CS were vacant.
The New York Times review contains some interesting
information on the background of the opera.
It also goes down the list of singers and basically says each does well.
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