La Clemenza di Tito

Mozart La Clemenza di Tito opera to a libretto by Pietro Metastasio adapted by Caterino Mazzolà. Directed 2017 by Claus Guth at Glyndebourne. Stars Richard Croft (Tito), Anna Stéphany (Sesto), Alice Coote (Vitellia), Clive Bayley (Publio), Michèle Losier (Annio), and Joélle Harvey (Servilia). Robin Ticciati conducts the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (Leader Matthew Truscott) and the Glyndebourne Chorus (Chorus Master Jeremy Bines). Designed by Christian Schmidt; movement direction by Ramses Sigl; lighting design by Olaf Winter; production design by Arian Andiel; dramaturgy by Ronny Dietrich. Directed for TV by François Roussillon; Executive Producer George Bruell. Sung in Italian. Released 2018, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: NA

David Vickers, writing in the September 2018 Gramophone, pages 106-107, explains the split-level set that has private thoughts and actions taking place in nature and political events transpiring in a palace. Vickers generally approves the production except for a trick ending which we will not spoil here.

Here is a clip from Opus Arte:

Buy on Amazon

What's New

Here's news about high-definition video disc ("HDVD") recordings of opera, ballet, classical music, plays, fine-art documentaries, and paintings. In the journal below are independent (and hard-to-find critical) reports on hundreds of HDVDs. Pick the best titles for your excelsisphere.

Feb 25. We have just completed one of our most ambitious reviews: Einstein on the Beach opera, the surreal 4 and 1/2 hour cult legend. Kudos, encomiums, and accolades to Opus Arte for giving us this authoritative and weirdly fascinating recording, which we grade A+. Absorbing and learning Einstein is uniquely challenging. We try to help out by providing aids not included in the keepcase materials: an accurate libretto and a list of segments in the opera with correct Opus Arte time stamps. Good luck!

We have some other good grades with an A for the recent Met The Pearl Fishers (Les pêcheurs de perles) and a B- for an earlier The Pearl Fishers from Naples. Also, we recently gave an A- for the new Don Quixote from the Vienna State Ballet.