More exciting than the recent re-launch of the secksayawesome Dior addict ultra gloss reflect, tonight opens the much anticipated new Graham Vick-directed production of Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito for Teatro Regio di Torino's 2007-08 season.
The staging has been updated to 1923, Mussolini's Rome replacing Tito's (back in the First Century CE)… all less than a month after Silvio Berlusconi won the general election here, placed a former fascist politician as the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, and another gentleman of the right wing persuasion got elected Mayor of Rome among shouts of "Duce! Duce!" (confusingly, to Opera Chic still-Americanized ears it sounded strangely like "Douche! Douche!").
Vick spoke a bit about the production:
«Tito ha i problemi di un dittatore moderno, non è un santo in un mondo illuminato, ma un imperatore in una Roma pericolosa e dominata dall’intrigo. Siamo ancora lontani dall’immagine filosofica di Adriano, tanto che Tito sembra scoprire la “clemenza” quando vede le belve assetate di sangue nel Colosseo, ma in Mozart, grande conoscitore dell’animo umano, nessun personaggio è a senso unico, nessuno è totalmente buono o totalmente cattivo.»
"Tito suffers from the modern dictator's dilemmas, he's not a saint in an elightened world, he's Rome emperor in an era of danger and intirgue. We're very far from Hadrian's philosophical image, Titus seems to discover his clemency while watching the bloodthirsty beats in the Coliseum; but Mozart, who understood deeply the human soul, no character has just one side, no one is wholly evil or wholly good".
On the podium (conducting an almost-HIP-sounding orchestra of Regio di Torino) is maestro Roberto Abbado.
Tito is Giuseppe Filianoti, Vitellia is Carmela Remigio, and Sesto is Monica Bacelli.