After an uneven start to the season, the Met brought its A game Friday to a superb revival of Mozart’s “La Clemenza di Tito.”
The 1791 work is suggested by the career of the magnanimous Roman emperor Titus, whose real-life résumé included building the Colosseum and providing disaster relief for Pompeii.
In the opera, he’s the target of an assassination plot led by the jealous princess Vitellia and her lover, Sesto — Tito’s dearest friend.
In the male role of the conflicted Sesto, Latvian mezzo Elina Garanca won a fervent ovation for her elegant singing of her virtuoso arias. Sleek and beautiful, with a lustrous voice, she needed only a touch of dramatic fire to complete her portrayal.
In contrast, Barbara Frittoli burned up the stage as the scheming Vitellia, fully invested in director Jean-Pierre Ponnelle’s crazy-diva concept of the role. Her bright soprano, though, slipped in and out of focus, and she ducked the high B’s in the first-act trio.
As Tito, Giuseppe Filianoti began in sluggish voice, but soared to virile, commanding form in his elaborate “Se all’impero” aria in the second act. Even more impressive was his acting. Pale and dark-eyed, the tenor re-imagined the stoic emperor as a haunted, poetic soul who wept openly when facing the necessity of condemning his friend to death.
Smaller roles were strongly cast as well. In her Met debut, Lucy Crowe offered a ravishing, fine-grained soprano in the single aria of Servilia, Sesto’s virtuous sister. As Servilia’s sweetheart Annio, another cross-dressing part, Kate Lindsey’s vibrant mezzo contrasted handsomely with Garanca’s cooler sound. Bass Oren Gradus brought suitable gravitas to the one-dimensional part of Tito’s sidekick Publio.
This “Tito” was more than the sum of its excellent parts, thanks to the imaginative and vigorous conducting of Harry Bicket, who made even the stiff baroque arias sound shapely.
The Ponnelle production, which dates back to its 1984 Met premiere, looked crisply refurbished, with 1700s costumes and Roman ruins against a palette of warm brown-blacks and parchment whites. Peter McClintock’s sensitive re-creation of the late director’s staging should look particularly handsome when the opera is telecast in HD on Dec. 1.
With its ornate arias and high-minded drama, “Tito” is hardly comfort food. But for the operatic epicure, it’s a gourmet feast.