MOZART Mitridate, re di Ponto (Minkowski)

Record and Artist Details

Genre:

Opera

Label: C Major

Media Format: Digital Versatile Disc

Media Runtime: 161

Mastering:

DDD

Catalogue Number: 767908

767908. MOZART Mitridate, re di Ponto (Minkowski)

Tracks:

Composition Artist Credit
Mitridate, Re di Ponto Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer
(Les) Musiciens du Louvre
Adriana Bignagni Lesca, Arbate, Mezzo soprano
Ana Maria Labin, Aspasia, Soprano
Angela Brower, Sifare, Mezzo soprano
Marc Minkowski, Conductor
Paul-Antoine Bénos-Djian, Farnace, Countertenor
Pene Pati, Mitridate, Tenor
Sahy Ratia, Marzio, Tenor
Sarah Aristidou, Ismene, Soprano

Mozart was determined to make a splash with his first full-length opera, unfurled in Milan weeks before his 15th birthday. He succeeded, triumphantly, in a work that had audiences cheering to the rafters at the premiere and subsequently ran for over 20 performances. With Mitridate the former wunderkind gave the Milanese public exactly what they expected: a dignified, quasi-historical drama (loosely based on Racine’s play of 1673) involving amorous and dynastic conflicts, and powered by a sequence of expansive bravura arias. Bowing to the demands of the starry Milanese cast (including three castrati), Mozart fashioned each number to display the range, agility and, not least, ‘taste’ of his singers. Guglielmo d’Ettore, the tenor playing King Mitridate, proved specially exigent, forcing Mozart to rewrite his opening aria no fewer than four times.

The 14-year-old composer was a supremely accomplished musical mimic but, unsurprisingly, not yet the finished article. Many of Mitridate’s arias prioritise virtuoso display over dramatic aptness – just the kind of thing that Gluck was seeking to purge in his ‘reform’ operas. But amid the flashy note-spinning there are some striking and prophetic numbers, beginning with Mitridate’s tenderly lyrical entrance ‘cavata’ (fifth time lucky!). The heroine Aspasia – inconveniently desired by Mitridate and both his sons – has a fine, agitated G minor aria in Act 1 and a powerful, Gluckian ombra scene in the final act. (The soprano singing the role had recently appeared in Gluck’s Alceste. Mozart diplomatically took note.) Other highlights include the elegiac ‘Lungi da te’, with obbligato horn, for the loyal son Sifare, and a noble scene in which the treacherous son Farnace is finally overcome by a crisis of conscience.

With a nod, perhaps, to Graham Vick’s Samurai-influenced Covent Garden staging (Opus Arte, 7/95), Satoshi Miyagi’s Berlin production draws on Japanese kabuki theatre in its costumes, set designs and gestures. In the process, the opera becomes a timeless cultural clash between Mitridate’s Asia and a Europe symbolised by the Roman general Marzio and his troops, dressed in modern uniform. Gold is the dominant colour, both in the terraced sets and the elaborate costumes. As in kabuki theatre, the singers’ movements are stylised and minimal. Although the small screen inevitably diminishes the impact, the overall effect is starkly impressive. After Mitridate falls on his sword and the brothers are reconciled, Mozart’s brief final ensemble suggests the lieto fine demanded by convention. In this production the bloodied, traumatised survivors, writhing on the darkened stage-as-battlefield, create a very different impression.

Within the static, ritualistic convention all the singers live their roles and survive close camera scrutiny. As the (here) physically hobbled King Mitridate, the fast-risen Samoan tenor Pene Pati commands both lyrical inwardness and heroic power, and duly brings the house down in each of his solos. Pati favours ferocity over smoothness in negotiating the wide leaps for which d’Ettore was famous. But his performance, complete with unstinting top Cs and Ds, is superb, vocally and dramatically. Ana Maria Labin, as Aspasia, immediately sets out her stall in the fiery coloratura of her entrance aria. This is a princess not to be messed with. Her grieving soliloquy ‘Nel grave tormento’ and the ombra scene are notable for the intensity and subtle shading of her soft singing.

Of the two warring brothers, the imposingly named countertenor Paul-Antoine Bénos-Djian, as Farnace, is happiest when singing softly. He’s unsteady, with some ugly chesty plunges, in his swashbuckling opening solo, but moving in the sustained lines of his aria of repentance. Opening with a perfectly graded messa di voce – the controlled swelling and ebbing of tone essential to an 18th-century singer’s armoury – Angela Brower, as Sifare, deploys her powerful high mezzo with dramatic flair, sailing easily into the stratosphere. In tandem with an eloquent, darkly subdued horn obbligato, ‘Lungi da te’ is a tour de force of controlled passion. After a slightly tremulous opening aria, Sarah Aristidou displays a bright, nimble soprano as Ismene, the rejected princess who in the end marries Farnace, as Aspasia marries Sifare.

As on his CD recording (Erato, 1/22), Marc Minkowski directs his period band with urgency (arguably too much so in a couple of arias) and stylistic sensitivity. He again cuts two arias, neither of them musically distinctive, and relocates one of Ismene’s solos from Act 2 to Act 3. Less debatable is his pruning of the acres of dry recitative. You need patience for Mitridate, plus a dose of tolerance when the 14-year-old composer is on bravura autopilot. But I enjoyed this handsomely stylised production more than I expected, thanks above all to the dramatic vitality of the singing and playing. And if you’ve seen one hyperactive opera staging too many, this could be the perfect antidote.

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