La clemenza di Tito, Barbican; Patience, Union Theatre; review

La clemenza di Tito at the Barbican (*****) was the most satisfying opera performance of the year; Patience at the Union Theatre (***) is an all-male production in which everyone has a good time.

Union Theatre's all-male version of Gilbert and Sullivan's 'Patience'
Vivacious: Union Theatre's all-male version of Gilbert and Sullivan's 'Patience' Credit: Photo: Kay Young

ON PAPER the big attraction of the Barbican’s concert version of Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito, was to have been a rare London appearance by the wondrous Latvian mezzo Elina Garanca as Sesto. Last week, however, she pulled out, to be replaced by our own Alice Coote, who has memorably sung the role at ENO.

Any disappointment at the substitution immediately evanesced: Coote was in incandescent voice, passionately engaged in her two big arias and making every bar of recitative dramatically alive and meaningful.

She had a worthy antagonist in the Swedish soprano Malin Hartelius, a scheming Vitellia with crisp, clean attack and a fittingly corrosive splash of acid in her timbre, while Michael Schade showed apparently effortless command of Mozartian style as that stuffed shirt Tito.

First-class contributions from Rosa Feola (Servilia), Christina Daletska (Annio) and Brindley Sherratt (Publio) made this a vintage cast that Covent Garden couldn’t have bettered. Inspired by Louis Langree’s conducting of the impeccable Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, this was the most compelling and accomplished operatic performance I have heard all season.

At the other end of the artistic scale, I was diverted by Sasha Regan’s all-male production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience at the little fringe Union Theatre.

The score doesn’t show Sullivan at his best, but Gilbert is on crackingly dyspeptic form in the libretto, and Regan’s idea of moving the setting from Della Cruscan Victorian aestheticism into a milieu redolent of wispy Bloomsbury and Charleston in the 1920s is neat and witty.

The dialogue isn’t delivered with much sophistication, and I quickly tired of the ugly and abrasive falsetto singing that an all-male cast necessitates. But Drew McOnie’s choreography is vivacious, Dominic Brewer makes an unusually sympathetic Bunthorne and Stiofan O’Doherty’s Grosvenor strikes the right note of preening elegance.

The rest of the show is only on the level of a good school musical, but everyone has a good time. So, in Bunthorne’s own words, “If you’re after a bit of touch-and-go jocularity, this is the shop for it.”

'Patience’ until March 10. Tickets: 020 7261 9876