Recordings Review: Rome, Built in Eighteen Days

Yannick Nézet-Séguin drives his Mozart cycle into La Clemenza di Tito.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

What's an assassination between friends?
Rolando Villazón (left) goofs with Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who conducts him in this new
La Clemenza di Tito. Photo © 2018 Deutsche Grammophon/Universal Music Group.

There are some operas in the repertory that owe their prominence not to the quality of their music but due to the circumstances of their creation. Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito ("The Clemency of Titus") is a leading example. The last opera he started (but not the last he finished) in his short time, it is an old-fashioned opera seria that was created in a great big hurry, with the composer racing to have the work ready in time for a coronation ceremony in the city of Prague. Legend is that he wrote the opera in eighteen days.

Opera Review: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Handel's Atalanta bows at Caramoor. 
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra with Nicholas McGegan at its center.
Photo by Suzanne Karp.

When an arts festival goes through a major change of direction, there are always bumps and bruises. At Caramoor, which has operated on the Rosen estate in Katona New York for seventy-three years, those bruises are starting to show. There is a new artistic administrator on the campus: Kathy Schuman, formerly of Carnegie Hall. Gathering places and social areas are being renovated. And the festival's crown jewel, its opera series, has undergone the most rigorous change of all.