When the powers that were wanted to commission an opera to celebrate the coronation of Holy Roman Emperor Leopold as King of Bohemia in 1791, they were disappointed to find their composer of choice unavailable. Instead, they settled for plan B: Mozart. La clemenza di Tito, a story of an all-powerful emperor with an unusual capacity for mercy, might have gladdened the hearts of the dynastically rapacious Hapsburgs on their big day. Instead, the push-me-pull-you of royal variety commissioning resulted in a disappointed Queen Maria Louisa dubbing Mozart’s final opera “a German mess”. Further mess followed, when Leopold died the following year and France declared war.
Writing with both hands in the last months of his life, Mozart produced a score of extraordinary stylistic scope from Baroque to Romantic and it is the music that has carried this peculiar story over nearly 250 years. It’s often said that, in opera, the story isn’t exactly the point. But it very much is if you find yourself directing one. The failed assassination of a Roman emperor and its aftermath was a long shot even for 1791. What can the Romans do for us in Antwerp in 2023?
Swiss director Milo Rau’s richly inventive, decolonized production for Opera Ballet Vlaanderen deftly turns the question around. Finally making it onto the stage after its online premiere during Covid, Rau’s first foray into opera presents a story about the structures of power: who wields it and how they get to keep it, not least in the opera house itself. Witty, provocative surtitles point out – among other things – that the original story deals only with the emotions of the aristocracy. Rau’s reframing tells two parallel narratives instead: the collusion on which power relies (the machinations of the original libretto) and, by way of documentary film technique, the stories of the real people on stage.
Well-known for using non-professional actors in his productions, Rau creates an appealing democracy by rolling the cast bios during some of the longer arias, giving the audience the choice to keep our eyes on the original, or to widen our gaze. One of two shamans that bring Tito back from the brink is a young violinist from Aleppo whose experience of war is one of many threads sensitively woven into the dramaturgy, itself a collaboration between Clara Pons and Giacomo Bisordi. Another of those threads is that of Tito’s bodyguard, Francois Makanga, a guide at the Afrikamuseum in Tervuren, a job which he says is like “looking into the attic of every Belgian”.
Anton Lukas’ set painstakingly recreates the sights and sounds of a refugee camp, where Tito drops in with a film crew – led by video artist Laurent Fontaine-Czaczes – to exercise a bit of noblesse oblige. Jeremy Ovenden’s emperor is all dress-down bonhomie, exuding vocal authority and with a perfectly judged generosity of tone that we trust at our peril. When violence erupts, the camera doesn’t lie. Anna Goryachova was breathtaking as Sesto, the lover turned assassin; Anna Malesza-Kutny, as volatile Vitellia, was her match made in heaven. Sarah Yang brought a vocal freshness to Servilia that belied a darker streak, and I’m sure there’s a technical term for the effortless vocal and physical poise of Maria Warenberg as Annio, but I’m just going to say gorgeous.
The Orkest Opera Ballet Vlaanderen was terrific. Alejo Perez’s baton was absolutely in time with the youthful exuberance of this production: daring flourishes of fortepiano in the recitatives, electrifying articulation in the strings, the ‘mafia funeral’ moments for the trumpets – those heralds of Verdi – and, of course, there was pure clarinet seduction.
It's not all perfect and I’m sure Rau would be the first to admit that he can trust opera more to do the work. Revolution is never a tidy business and there is some fall-out in terms of overworked tableaux and occasional obfuscation of the core narrative. However, any rough edges are more than made up for by the tangible commitment to this audacious project of everyone on stage, in the pit and, I don’t doubt, every technician, dresser, cloakroom attendant and cleaner. They truly believe in this story. So do I.
