La Clemenza di Tito at the Concert Chamber

By TARA WERNER

CONCERT CHAMBER, Auckland - "German swinishness" is what the Italian-born Empress Maria Luisa called Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito after its premiere in 1791, during the coronation of her husband Leopold as King of Bohemia.

How wrong and arrogant can you be?

Even though it may have been written on the run - partly during the time Mozart was travelling between Vienna and Prague - the opera is brimful of marvellous music.

But it's seldom performed, and musical director Peter Scholes and the Auckland Chamber Orchestra should be congratulated for bringing it to light.

They concentrated on the arias, with narrator Raymond Hawthorne linking each section of the complicated plot.

Both the women singing male roles, Zan McKendree-Wright (Sesto) and Helen Medlyn (Annio), were entirely convincing. These two mezzos could sing to kill, McKendree-Wright especially, as a would-be assassin.

Her showpiece aria, Parto, parto, was a pleasure to hear, ably accompanied by an elaborate clarinet solo by Ashley Hopkins.

Nonetheless, she met her match in soprano Joanna Heslop, who made a very patrician Vitellia, and whose vocal prowess was given full expression in her difficult aria Non piu di fiori.

Another beautiful instrumental obbligato, this time Andrew Uren on basset horn, balanced the aria.

Anne Gerbic as the lovelorn Servilia provided an elegant touch with her little arietta S'altro che lagrime, while Paul Chappory as the Emperor Tito sang a heartfelt lament, Se all'impero.

Bass Richard Green made a commanding captain of the Praetorian Guard, and the chorus fulfilled their role with assurance.

The sheer exquisiteness of Mozart's penultimate opera triumphed - music written under extreme duress and only nine weeks before he died.