La Clemenza di Tito, Barbican - review - Music - Arts

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There's convincing characterisation aplenty too, despite the implausibility of an emperor who can't stop forgiving - even when would-be consorts spurn and friends betray him. The superb cast of this concert performance seized their opportunities. As the treacherous friend Sextus, Alice Coote delivered a plea for forgiveness that would have melted the heart of a tyrant, let alone a softie like Titus. Also pleading for Sextus was the Annius of the warm-toned, engaging Christina Daletska.

Malin Hartelius developed the guilt-ridden character of Vitellia to the full in her set-piece aria Non più di fiori, her line interweaving with Matthew Hunt's excellent basset-horn. Michael Schade in the title role seemed the least comfortable with the vestigial staging but almost managed to persuade that the hardships of the emperor are greater than those of "the beggar in his hovel". The beggar may disagree. Schade dispatched his virtuoso arias with aplomb, however; Rosa Feola as Servilia and Brindley Sherratt as Publius also impressed.

From the admirable Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Louis Langrée secured the firmly rhythmic playing that befits the aristocratic style of the opera, cultivating too the humane sensibilities that make it the timeless masterpiece we now recognise it to be.

La Clemenza Di Tito
Barbican
Golden Lane
City of London
EC1Y 8DL