1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Fair attempt at a lovely opera, June 20, 2006
This review is from: Mozart: Mitridate, Rè di Ponto (Audio CD)
This recording is not bad. But it lacks the feeling and passion. Singing is mediocre. Sound quality is better than the performance quality.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
0 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A brilliant opera slightly betrayed by the cast, December 22, 2007
This review is from: Mozart: Mitridate, Rè di Ponto (Audio CD)
Mozart and love again. Here he intertwines love and politics with two sons and the promised wife of their father, plus the daughter of a foreign king. Mitridate starts with having his own death announced. This leads to his younger son's declaring his love to his father's promised wife and to his elder son's proclaiming himself king. What a surprise when their father turns up with a foreign princess for his elder son as a mark of a new political alliance against the Romans. But our own surprise is that the two sons and the governor of Ninfea are sung by two sopranos and one mezzo-soprano instead of altos. That makes the whole text mysterious if not sibylline. . And the recording is recent and was done in Utrecht. Are the Dutch that low in altos? And the music is so light, so expressive, the recitative so elaborate. Mozart is approaching here his best level of operatic composition. We are reduced to imagining what it could have been with altos. For example the aria "Soffre in mio cor con pace" by Sifare, the younger son. Jaroussky would be so good in that piece. The question of fighting against the Romans or signing an alliance is looming high behind these contradictions. Mitridate moves toward imprisoning his sons and his ex-promised wife. It is the attack of the Romans who disembark on the coast that prevents the worst ending: executing all these traitors. In fact Mitridate is mortally wounded and his elder son sets the Roman fleet on fire. Mitridate has enough time to give his ex-promised wife to his younger son and his crown to his elder son. A happy ending both politically and sentimentally, in spite of the possible alliance of the elder son with the Romans that this elder son in the end rejects. The normal conclusion then is that the alliance against the Romans has been strengthened. But was it strengthened only by political virtue or was it deepened by the satisfaction of love and love expectations? The question is answered by the events themselves. Without love nothing would have been possible. And here again Mozart submits politics to love and not the reverse. Mozart reaches in this opera some extraordinary moments when expressing antagonistic feelings like in Mitridate's aria ""Tu, che fedel mi sei" addressed to his younger son and his ex-wife. He is divided as for his son since he vindicates him as his son and yet he is jealous, and this jealousy is shifted from his rival, his son, to the prey, to the woman, his ex-promised wife that he rejects with violence though this only shows his love and his desire. An aria addressed to two people with mixed feelings toward both. This is a piece of pure pleasure. But the pleasure is marred by the mezzo soprano in the elder son's aria "Son reo". We can only imagine what Robert Expert would have done of it. The tone is so ambiguous too, typically Handelian, divided between his filial fidelity to his father and his disagreement with him on the policy to choose, both in private love affairs and in public military fights. And we feel that frustration again in the one on one scene with the younger son and the ex-promised wife of Mitridate, Two sopranos that should not have been two. The younger son does not come out in anyway with his own personality. And the duet "Se viver non degg'io" is so dramatic that it seems to have been in a way emasculated by this artistic choice that betrays the situation and the music. Ah! The ghostly absence of Jaroussky there. And this duet is supposed to close up the second act when the Romans are menacing and Mitridate is promising prison if not death to his two sons and his ex-promised wife. The third act brings the total reversal of all dangers and menaces. The elder son, liberated by the Roman representative, decides to follow the way of "glory and honor". And he sets the Roman fleet on fire, thus causing their defeat. But a dying wounded Mitridate will just be able to see and in a way bless the good ending. He will be able to forgive everyone and the elder son will marry the Parthian princess his father had brought back for him, the younger son will be entrusted with the ex-promised wife of Mitridate and then the final brilliant ending can come in the form of a quintet. The new alliance of love and politics: Politics can only be right if based on love and love can only be right if it prolongs or deepens politics, in spite of the fact it is a quintet with five women instead of two and three altos.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
