Classical music matters again. - At least if we judge by the protests against the Stockhausen project and the fierce polemics on the interventions of opera directors. For instance, it caused La clemenza di Tito by Teodor Currentzis and Peter Sellars even before its Dutch premiere a controversy. They deleted the interminable recitatives and added music from Mozart's Mass in c minor, among others.
'Shame!", cried the opera fundamentalists, without having heard a single note. Their irreconcilable attitude is at odds with Mozart's own message: forgive even your own murderer. This co-production by The National Opera, Salzburg Festival and Deutsche Oper Berlin received a jubilant reception at the Stopera on 7 May.
Music offers compassion and hope
'Music can teach us to love, forgive, help, show pity and compassion, cherish hope', Currentzis had told me previously told. According to him, Mozart has an eye for our human weaknesses. He shows us the "asymmetrical beauty of our lives" and is therefore "a contemporary composer". And he is right. Our society is in dire need of generosity and forgiveness.
Peter Sellers highlights the topicality of the libretto adapted by Caterino Mazzolà on which Mozart based his opera. Roman emperor Tito gives away his wealth to victims of a natural disaster and a fire. Sellars replaces them with a group of ragged immigrants. He is often accused of seeking far-fetched links to the present, but this staging is utterly raunchy.
In Mozart, Emperor Tito has to give up his beloved Berenice because she is from Judea. In Sellars' direction, she is a Palestinian. He stages Sesto and his sister Servilia as two refugees invited by Tito to build a new life in Rome. He appoints the aristocrat Vitellia as their guide and mentor.
Suicide bomber
However, she was once rejected by the emperor, prompting Sesto to kill him - as a suicide bomber. After an endless series of entanglements and a failed attempt on his life, Tito forgives his attackers. Unlike Mozart, he then dies, after which the opera ends with his Maurerische Trauermusik. Although appropriate, I would have preferred to hear the original ending here. The other inserted fragments are well chosen, though.
So sounds the 'Benedictus qui venit' from the Mass in c as Tito generously welcomes the asylum seekers. The jubilant chant fits the festive atmosphere seamlessly. However, this tilts when the choir members suddenly flood into the hall. A perhaps unsubtle but apt reference to the masses of victims of poverty and violence threatening to engulf us. When Servilia rejects Tito's marriage proposal and he thanks her for her honesty, we hear the shimmering 'Laudate'.
Refreshed version
With such interventions, Sellars and Currentzis make the complicated story palpable. What the critics have against this is beyond me. After all, Mozart himself asked his lyricist to make drastic cuts to Pietro Metastasio's 60-year-old libretto. Mazzolà reduced the opera from three to two acts and replaced solo recitatives with duets and tercets. More than two centuries later, why shouldn't performers also be allowed to produce a refreshed version?
Dynamic nuances
'I only do what the composer wants,' Currentzis said in the above-mentioned interview. Of course that is his vision, but I believe him. It is pure pleasure to hear how accurately he guides his musicAeterna, played on authentic instruments, through Mozart's music. They bring the notes to life with a velvety sound and sparkling accents. It sounds tinglingly fresh, as if the ink is still wet.
Striking is the careful dynamics, which can switch from closely audible pianissimo to deafening forte in one fell swoop. Not only the instrumentalists excel in subtle dynamic nuances, but also the choir members. Chilling is the moment when, in 'Qui tollis peccata mundi', they suddenly throttle back in the middle of the word 'mundi'.
Everyone hangs on Currentzis' lip, including the soloists. From row four, I could see how he muses along - or even audibly sings along - with every phrase. He gives the singers all the space they need, literally breathing with them and daring to drop pauses. Even though the tempi are fast at times, there is not the slightest hint of agitation, barring an occasional ragged effort.
Paula Murrihy is the true star
The vocal cast is of varying levels. The tenor Russell Thomas convinces neither in voice nor as an actor as Emperor Tito. When he enters the stage with his entourage, you automatically look at Sir Willard White, who has a much nobler appearance. In his twenty-fifth production at De Nationale Opera, however, the Jamaican-British bass-baritone sings the modest role of Publio. Despite a small frog in his throat, White convinces with his lived-in rendition.
Soprano Ekaterina Scherbachenko is a credible Vitellia, even if her intonation in the second act is not always flawless. Stirring is soprano Janai Brugger in her role of vulnerable Servilia. Her beloved Annio is a brilliant transvestite role by Jeanine De Bique. She has terrific stage presence and sings the most difficult colouraturas with admirable suppleness flawlessly.
But the true star of the evening is Irish mezzo-soprano Paula Murrihy as Sesto, also in transvestism. More than Tito, he/she is the protagonist of this opera. Murrihy phenomenally displays the 'asymmetrical beauty of our lives'. Shuttered as an infatuated youth who cannot resist the duplicitous Vitellia. Determined once she buckles the bomb belt to kill Tito and full of remorse when she is at his deathbed.
Duet between clarinet and soprano
A highlight is her duet with the clarinetist Florian Schuele in the aria 'Parto', in which she definitively decides to carry out the attack planned by Vitellia. Like two lovers, Schuele and Murrihy circle each other, one acting even more virtuoso than the other. Later, Sellars presents a beautiful mirror image, when Schuele with basset horn besieges the guilt-ridden Vitellia. Schuele also delivers a top performance: he plays his dog-eared part by heart and moves like an experienced actor.
Sellars' direction is deeply human, even if you wish he curbed his love of pathetic gestures a little. When choir and soloists desperately raise their arms to heaven for the umpteenth time or clap their hands in front of their eyes or ears, the tension ebbs away. When Tito lies convulsing in his hospital bed while singing, it even works somewhat on the funny bone.
But, dear opera fundamentalists: La clemenza di Tito is and remains a splendid performance. If only for the scorching rendition of the music.
La clemenza di Tito can still be seen until 24 May. More info and playlist here.
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