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Paul Nilon gives an impressive performance as Tito Picture
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Some laughs, but it’s seriously good music
REVIEW: LA CLEMENZA DI TITO
ENO AT THE LONDON COLISEUM
By Helen Lawrence
MOZART returned reluctantly to opera seria for La Clemenza di Tito, written in the last weeks of his short life to mark the coronation in Prague of the Emperor Leopold II.
The plot centres on the machinations of Vitellia to become Tito’s Empress, and involves him implausibly proposing marriage to three different women in one day.
A work of ideas rather than action, David McVicar’s elegant production, in a dignified, abstract and timeless setting, is the best way to present such pieces; no tricksy attempts at updating to make it ‘relevant’. Yannis Thavoris’s splendid sets of revolving curved panels and screens, decorated with Japanese silk-screen motifs or carved lattice-work, create wonderful stage pictures, beautifully lit by Paule Constable.
The Oriental effect is heightened by the Emperor’s bodyguard of kendo martial artists.
The only defect is Amanda Holden’s plodding translation of the uninspired libretto, all too clearly displayed in the surtitles, provoking mirth at all the wrong moments.
A first-rate cast rises above this, offering some outstanding singing and acting, with good clear diction, in particular Alice Coote as Sesto, originally a castrato role; a wonderfully rich mezzo voice expertly used, and a sincere and convincing actress.
Paul Nilon is a vocally accomplished Tito, conveying the moral anguish of an unusually enlightened ruler, not wishing to use his power to become a tyrant – the clemency of the title.
Emma Bell returns in the testing role of Vitellia, the cause of all the problems, and another beautiful voice with the required huge range and agility, although not as consistently even in tone as it could be.
Sarah Jane Davies, Anne Marie Gibbons and Andrew Foster-Williams as Servilia, Annio and Publio, and the clarinet obbligatos of Anthony Lamb, all contribute positively.
Edward Gardner, ENO’s new music director, gives a well-judged stylish performance maintaining the momentum this piece needs. If only the surtitles could be dropped.
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