It is less than three years since the last new production of Mozart's final opera at the Royal Opera House. That staging came from the Salzburg festival, and was generally accounted a failure. That another Clemenza di Tito should arrive so quickly, this time after being seen first at the Dallas Opera in 1999, suggests some pragmatic rethinking by the Royal Opera management: presumably a revival of the last show was already in the schedules and the singers contracted before its shortcomings were obvious, and therefore this replacement was smartly requisitioned so the cast would not be unemployed.
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with Stephen Lawless's production, but there is nothing especially remarkable about it either. The chief reward of the evening is the high quality of the singing. It is understandable that the company should have wanted to retain a line-up like this - to have a soprano of Anna Netrebko's pedigree (Kirov-trained, and a huge hit as Donna Anna at Salzburg this summer) in the tiny part of Servilia is luxury casting indeed. Netrebko has just one aria, as well as the gorgeous first-act duet with Katarina Karneus's wonderfully articulate Annius, but there is plenty of evidence of her sovereign command and huge promise. With Barbara Frittoli as an elegant if occasionally slightly forced Vitellia, Vesselina Kasarova a passionate, sumptuous-sounding Sextus and the amply humane Titus of Bruce Ford, to whom the musical manners of this opera seria are second nature, the technical presentation of every number is exemplary.
What is lacking, though, is any kind of tension, anything to signal that this is a piece of theatre concerned with real human beings whose real feelings are pushed to the edge. Colin Davis's conducting exudes affection for the score; he shapes everything with a immense care and beauty of tone and the woodwind obbligatos that decorate so many numbers are exquisite. But it is all too reverential; there is no urgency in either the secco recitative or the arias, and the choruses are just bland.
The production equally takes no risks. Lawless has gently updated the piece from imperial Rome to the 18th-century age of revolutions, and, as the profusion of tricorn hats and the presence of a guillotine signals, to France. In Benoit Dugardyn's sets every stage picture is carefully conceived but entirely neutral, and the chilly blues and greys of the costumes (by Sue Wilmington) are nicely coordinated, but only reinforce the studied detachment of it all.
· Until September 23. Box office: 020-7304 4000.
