Tito Manlio - Accademia Bizantina/Ottavio Dantone - Barbican, 19 February 2008
Is baroque opera losing its pulling power? A year or two ago, a concert performance of a rarely-done Vivaldi opera by respected specialists might have drawn a sizeable audience. Tonight I don't think the Barbican was even half full, with most of the audience huddled into the freezing cold lower level. With little musical competition elsewhere in London it was a disappointing turnout.
Ottavio Dantone and Accademia Bizantina recorded Tito Manlio a couple of years ago together with some of the singers he brought to the Barbican.
I hadn't listened to that (or any) recording beforehand. With next to no info about Tito Manlio unearthable on teh internets, and the least informative concert programme I've ever seen, it really was a step into the unknown.
So, as interpreted via the surtitles, this is the story: Manlio and Vitellia are the son and daughter of Tito, Consul of Rome. Vitellia and Geminio are secretly in love, and Manlio is engaged to Geminio's sister, Servilia. Just to make things difficult, Geminio and Servilia are Latins, enemies of Rome - in fact Geminio is their leader. Sent on a scouting mission to Latium, but forbidden to fight, Manlio bumps into Geminio. Provoked by Geminio's taunting, Manlio kills him. Tito is obliged to order Manlio's execution - even the Consul's son cannot be above the law. The vengeful Vitellia eggs Tito on while Servilia pleads unsuccessfully for mercy. As Manlio is taken for execution, the Roman legions insist that he should be freed, because in killing the leader of Rome's enemy he has brought peace. In the face of this opposition, Tito is forced to show mercy and let Manlio go free. Manlio can now marry Servilia. Geminio's friend Lucio, whose love for Vitellia was unrequited while Geminio was alive, can now marry her too. We also meet Vitellia's servant Lindo, and Decio, the Roman soldiers' leader, really the only fat on a fairly lean and coherent drama.
If Vivaldi doesn't probe too deeply into his characters, they are at least rounded and credible, and there's some fantastic and really varied music.
But that wasn't too obvious to begin with. The first act fell flat as a Roman pizza. Some half-hearted playing from the orchestra was part of the problem, but it was more down to technically passable but bloodless and often under-projected singing. The only person who came out of this section with credit was Marina De Liso (Vitellia), an assured and velvety mezzo with a restrained dignity. She was a late substitute for the advertised Sonia Prina, an altogether more extrovert stage presence who might have succeeded in perking up the rest of the cast.
It seemed that quite a few people left at the interval - I even considered it myself. But Roberta Invernizzi (Lucio) opened the second act with such passion and energy that she got the first applause of the evening. This seemed to light a fire under the rest of the musicians. And just like that, the performance was transformed. Roberta Invernizzi just got better and better, with impressive coloratura and dynamic control shading her lines. Karina Gauvin's Manlio was noble and touching, her highlight a fantastically mournful prison aria, thinly scored and doubled by oboe. Ann Hallenberg's Servilia had a graceful coolness which complemented Karina Gauvin's warmth, and she managed not to be outshone by the riveting viola d'amore obbligato which accompanied one of her arias. When it came to the vengeful fury required in the second act, Marina De Liso was less outstanding than she had been earlier, but it was still a creditable performance. Carlo Lepore's Tito lacked the beefy presence and fullness of tone to be truly assertive, but his vocal dexterity in the gymnastic coloratura was never in question. Christian Senn gamely captured the comedy in the role of Lindo without over-milking it.
In the end though - and I never thought I'd say this of a Vivaldi opera - it is the richness and colour and sheer variety of the score which impresses. With every possible combination of horns, trumpets, bassoon, oboes and recorders in addition to strings and keyboards, it never just chugs along. Every detail is thought out. The sheer exuberance of Accademia Bizantina's performance, at least in the second half, raised it to another level again. It's hard to believe, as the programme suggests, that Vivaldi completed Tito Manlio in just five days, and rather sad to reflect that, with no sure record of a complete performance in his lifetime, he quite possibly never heard it in full.
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