Operablr Pride Month 🏳️🌈 - Week #3: La Clemenza di Tito
-> Salzburg Festspiele, 2003
Michael Schade - Tito
Vesselina Kasarova - Sesto
Dorothea Röschmann - Vitellia
Elina Garanča - Annio
Barbara Bonney - Servilla
Luca Pisaroni - Publio
The rest here
-> Opera
We all know I love Mozart, but this opera can't be as great as the famous three comedies he composed to da Ponte libretti. Mostly because Neapolitan style, especially opera seria, is getting too old at that time and we can see it in La Clemenza. Mozart took Metastasio's libretto (bold move I guess) wanted to spice it up with ensembles, action and his BEAUTIFUL, extremely beautiful music, but it wasn't enough for people in 1791 to appreciate it. We can't blame them.
Mozart was created to compose comedies, but I still like this opera. Maybe because it has too many buffa features (obviously, it's still extremely serious) and maybe because it's Mozart. We can't forget about the amazing choir parts and arias, which are stunning.
There's nothing special about the libretto, but it doesn't really have that much boring parts (because of Mazzoli and Mozart, again) and Tito is quite an interesting character. I know this opinion is extremely unpopular, but he really is unusual. I like the rest of the characters as well, especially Vitellia, who has a nice character development (we can't say it about Idomeneo's Elettra) and Sesto - still not sure what's going on in his head tho.
-> The production
It is.. Weird. In some moments I had no clue what was going on on stage. The scenography was very cold. It's just a building with a few floors. I thinks it's supposed to be a museum, but I'm not sure. Sometimes I couldn't hear the singers or choir that well, probably because of the scenography. Singers were just wearing casual clothes. Except Publio and Tito who were occasionally in weird dresses. No idea what is the story behind it but I'm not a fan.
The cast was alright. I think Tito was a bit insane and I like this idea. It suits him. Kasarova is great as Sesto. I think she's my favorite Sesto now! Her singing and acting was flawless. Annio and Servilla had a nice chemistry, Garanča played a cheerful boy pretty well. Vitellia was hot and very charismatic, but vocally it wasn't the best of Röschmann's performances. She had some good moments, but her Non Più di Fiori wasn't as good as I expected it to be. Pisaroni was a good and very sexy Publio. Probably the sexiest Publio I've ever seen (often played by not very young dudes, so it's not so surprising).
-> The level of gayness
No chemistry between Tito and Sesto - pity, because they are my favorite gay opera boys.
But we have two trouser roles, so it has to be gay, I don't make the rules. And the chemistry between the divas was w o n d e r f u l.
BUT we get the gay surprise in this production. Publio! He was slightly turned on by everyone in Act II?! I'm getting some bisexual vibes over here and we're not going to complain, we don't ever expect Publio to be gay (let's be honest, we don't give a shit about him), but here we are!
And who's going to tell me La Clemenza is not gay?
