by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, libretto by Pietro Metastasio adapted by Caterino Mazzolà
seen at Covent Garden on 23 May 2021
Mark Wigglesworth conducted Edgaras Montvidas as Titus, Emily D'Angelo as Sextus, Nicole Chevalier as Vitellia, Angela Brower as Annius, and Christina Gansch as Servilia in Richard Jones's new Covent Garden production (the first since 2002) of Mozart's 1791 opera, with set and costume designs by Ultz.
The Roman emperor Titus reigned for only two years from CE 79 to 81, but in that short time earned a reputation for generosity and fairness. The opera, though it opens with the historical dismissal of his mistress, the foreign queen Berenice, due to popular pressure, exemplifies his much-lauded 'clemency' through a series of fictitious marriage and vengeance plots. In choosig his first bride, Servilia, he inadvertently comes between her and his friend Annius, and on being told about this, he nobly gives way.
Another close friend, Sextus, is in a more complicated position, having fallen in love with Vitellia, who incites him to plot the emperor's death since she is furious at being passed over as his bride. When Titus's next choice for a bride falls on her after all it is too late to forestall the insurrection, and it appears that Sextus has succeeded in murdering Titus. It is not so, of course, and the perplexed Titus must wrestle with the dilemma of condemning his closest friend who will not reveal why he has acted so violently, or flouting the law of treason. On the verge of the young man's execution Vitellia confesses to her part in the plot, touched that Sextus had kept silent to preserve her honour, and Titus forgives all to general approbation.
Clearly it is a bit of a farrago, built on the reputation ascribed to Titus by the classical sources (not by the Jewish sources, of course, in which he is denigrated for having destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem). The situations and conflicts are an opportunity for the eighteenth century librettists and composer to highlight extremes of passion, loyalty, betrayal and judicial clemency in a series of confrontations and resolutions, somewhat at the expense of individual character. For example, in proposing a series of marriages with no consultation Titus does not appear anything other than arbitrary, while Vitellia, by turns vengeful, manipulative and remorseful, hardly seems a suitable object of affection for anyone, let alone an emperor.
The setting of this production is modern, the stage quite open with some moveable rooms: a pair of offices for Titus, a town house for Vitellia, and what looked like a grocery store for Servilia. The stage wings were totally exposed to any audience member sitting to one side or another of the auditorium, presumably to maximise the ventilation deemed essential for protecting the health of performers and audience alike in this first week of the opening of theatres in the UK.
During the overture some lads played football (even while by and large observing the strictures of social distancing); one of them turned out to be Sextus, given a friendly pat on the back by Titus as he and his entourage (at this point still including Berenice) visit the playing field. The excellent Emily D'Angelo as Sextus performed almost her entire role in football teeshirt, shorts and boots, clearly marked out as by far the youngest of the protagonists. Surely he would have changed before going to visit Vitellia or anyone else - but he was only in blue fatigues when marched in for his execution. It was a clever solution to the problem of explaining the extreme volatility of his emotions and actions: when questioned by the baffled Titus he scuffed his boots and bashed his head against a wall, the very picture of gawky, truculent and inarticulate youth. The downside to this interpretation was that the prior friendship of Titus and Sextus could not be seen as flourishing between grown men: one was still just a boy.
This was perhaps symptomatic of the awkwardness of this production: modern psychologising solutions to local problems of plot or motivation compromised the overall high-mindedness of the piece. The orchestral playing was fine and the singing often excellent (especially from Emily D'Angelo), but there was a good deal of visual distraction even in such a pared down set - characters paced up and down or prowled around the large expanses of the stage far too often and to far too little effect. The attempt to manage a chamber piece in a large auditorium, with the constraints of the current medical emergency to contend with as well, was intriguing but problematic.
