The Wiener Staatsoper’s season-opening run of La clemenza di Tito almost perfectly coincided with the work’s 232nd anniversary. With a talented cast and conductor, this performance could have properly honoured Mozart’s last opera seria, but the revival of the late Jürgen Flimm’s 2012 production made for a rather dubious homage. Indeed, this performance proved to be one of warring elements: a remarkable musical outing against a disjointed staging that had little to say about Mozart’s work.
The main issue with Flimm’s staging is its lack of coherence. The core concept rests on a meta-theatrical framing, a potentially interesting approach given the opera seria's inherent theatricality of conflicting public self-representations and private lives, but it’s too little in itself, especially when the production goes entirely against the work’s established narrative. An emblematic issue of this is Berenice, Tito’s former lover, who, instead of being duly dispatched at the beginning of the opera, never leaves. Why this happens and why Tito still proposes to two other women is never explained, with Berenice ultimately only providing a silent figure for Tito to monologue at. More problematic is the general lack of direction, the singers often being left to meander around the stage with very little sense of characterisation, motivation or dramatic tension. The matter is worsened by a string of recitative cuts that saved little time but muddled the plot to the point of incomprehension, repeatedly lessening the dramatic drive so elegantly crafted by Mozart and Caterino Mazzolà.
The dullness of the staging proved all the more frustrating given the musical quality it was set against. High praise is due for Pablo Heras-Casado’s thoroughly striking conducting, infusing the evening with much needed electrifying drive and consummate beauty. Though at times quite eccentric in his choice of tempi and phrasing, his reading was always fresh and intriguing, preserving both the imperial majesty and the human beauty of Mozart's score. Particularly remarkable was the Act 1 finale, hair-raising in its pre-Romantic sense of darkness and terror. Among the uniformly fine playing of the orchestra, the woodwinds were especially appealing, clarinet and basset horn obbligatos rendered with grace and pathos.
Seeing her debut as Vitellia with this run, Federica Lombardi proved a notable, though not faultless interpreter of the role. Lombardi's gleaming, golden, round-toned soprano was a delight to hear and, combined with a captivating stage presence, it’s hardly surprising that her Vitellia would hold Sesto in such thrall. The only (though considerable) beauty spot was a weakness in her bottom range, undercutting an otherwise highly moving “Non più di fiori”. Lombardi’s intelligent, sensitive performance nevertheless succeeded in making Vitellia, at least musically, a multi-faceted, thoroughly human figure.