FROM AROUND THE WORLD: PARIS.(La Clemenza di Tito; Manon)(Review)

The revival of Willy Decker's 1997 production of Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito was a welcome evening of fine Mozart singing at the Palais Garnier. After years of being eclipsed by earlier works, Mozart's rapidly composed last opera is now respected as a masterpiece, and although the formality of the opera seria genre was a retrograde step for the composer, the glowing genius of the mature Mozart s music is never in question. Gary Bertini's conducting of the score was bathed in glowing, Romantic colors, which made a welcome change from the currently fashionable "authentic" Mozart. Concentrating on the emotions of lost love, betrayal and forgiveness, Decker and his designer, John Macfarlane, used a huge block of white marble, which was gradually sculpted into a monumental image of the hero, Tito, to emphasize the difference between a static public image and personal anguish. Despite an announced indisposition on June 15, Charles Workman presented a dramatically credible, moving Tito, but even in the best of health it is doubtful whether his voice would have the heroic stature for the character's more dramatic outbursts; however, his somewhat opaque tone remained constantly musical. Vocally the evening was dominated by the performances of Vesselina Kasarova as Sesto and Christine Goerke as Vitellia. The Bulgarian mezzo, with her distinctive dark timbre, was both powerful and flexible; her aria "Parto, parto" was as fine a piece of singing as we have heard this season. Goerke matched her colleague in intensity and vocal panache, her anger and disappointment being drawn in bold, dramatic brush strokes, while her singing was vivid and controlled. The cast was completed by Anna-Maria Panzarella's prettily sung Servilia, Kimberly Barber's somewhat vocally undernourished Annio and the young French bass Nicolas Cavallier as Publio, whose once-promising timbre is beginning to sound prematurely middle-aged.

Opera de Paris completed its season with a revival of Gilbert Deflo's efficient 1997 staging of Massenet's Manon, reuniting many members of the ...