Giulio Cesare: Dà pace all'armi!

David McVicar presents Handel's Giulio Cesare as a witty, knowing fable about imperialist projects giving way to cooperation based on mutual respect between individuals and cultures. At least, this is how I read it, and I believe such a reading is supported by the highlighting of Handel's oft-reiterated motif of the conquered conquering. The theatrical exuberance of the production, mingling styles of stagecraft, costume, and choreography from different eras and cultures, is winsome, although I found the comedy occasionally broad for my taste. There is substance as well as style: Caesar gets a veranda of power, and the abundant divans and draperies are definitely modeled on Ingres rather than India itself, let alone Egypt. There is, to be sure, a suggestion of dysfunctional realities under the bright surface.  Caesar's military presence steadily grows on the glittering sea, and Sesto is very nearly destroyed by the hollow corruption of the military ethos he embraces in his pursuit of vengeance. Still--a fable this remains, with men and women, the dead and the living, the rulers and ruled, all united in the final tableau. Harry Bicket, with impressive energy and good humor, led the Met orchestra from the podium and the harpsichord. Subtle shifts in tempo and dynamics shifts were used well, I thought, to chart the characters'--and the drama's!--changes in mood. A curious lack of chemistry between the singers subdued the energy of the evening despite accomplished performances, but I found the evening nevertheless enjoyable.

Oh come un gran contento: Clemenza di Tito

The Emperor debates clemency: Filianoti as Tito (Photo (c) Ken Howard/Met Opera)

The vox populi is correct: the Met's revival of Clemenza di Tito is not only musically polished, but emotionally compelling, and stylish throughout. Jean-Pierre Ponnelle;s production employs elegant aesthetic hybridity, combining allusions to eighteenth-century Europe and ancient Rome in both the architecture and the costumes. The sets are characterized by symmetry and proportion, those shibboleths of the Augustan age, and the Personenregie is formal but not lacking in emotional intimacy. Some of the gestural conventions might have seemed stale, had they not been so convincingly employed by the singers, but as it was, I found myself moved by Ponnelle's tableaux. I especially appreciated the early distinction made between Tito's public and private personae, the staging of the emperor's Act II deliberations in an eighteenth-century gentleman's study, and the dramatic lighting for Vitellia's journey towards self-knowledge in "Non più di fiori." More frivolously, I liked the opening which sets up Vitellia's political persuasion of Sesto as pillow talk. The performance--including the late substitution of Geraldine Chauvet for the indisposed Elina Garanca in the role of Sesto--made a great case for the intellectual, emotional, and musical refinements of Mozart's work.