Mozart, W.A.: Clemenza Di Tito La Studio Production, 1980

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Summary

Mozart's last opera in a production filmed in historical Roman settings by one of the century's great Mozart directors, Jean-Pierre Ponnelle. "The visually flamboyant Mr. Ponnelle has attempted a f...

Mozart's last opera in a production filmed in historical Roman settings by one of the century's great Mozart directors, Jean-Pierre Ponnelle. "The visually flamboyant Mr. Ponnelle has attempted a fusion of the stylistic and, with the help of the camera closeup, the more natural and intimate. using locations in and around Rome, including Hadrian's Villa, he has placed his singers in spectacular settings of historical ruins,supplemented judiciously with additions and props. The music is magnificent, frequently sublime. And the cast is splendid..." (The New York Times, 19.10.81) Jean-Pierre Ponnelle was in great part responsible for making the musical world aware of the true importance of Mozart's last opera La Clemenza di Tito and for the fact that the opera is now regularly performed all over the world. He created a television version of his Salzburg Festival production of this work, an "opera seria" which Mozart composed in 1791 for the coronation of Emperor Leopold II in Prague. Ponnelle makes use of the wonderful gardens and ruins of Hadrian's Villa, the Thermae of Caracalla and Rome's Forum Romanum not because of their authenticity, but because of their unique atmospheric quality. The humanity of Mozart's characters is fully expressed thanks to the conductor James Levine and the outstanding cast of singer-actors led by the grandiose Tatiana Troyanos as Sextus and Eric Tappy as a commanding Tito.

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