I never thought I'd see a Mozart opera that I didn't like, but La Clemenza
de Tito comes close. The heroine is Vittelia, or more properly the
anti-heroine. She is, to put it succintly, a bitch on wheels. She
plotted a rebellion and assasination of the Roman emperor Titus, more
or less because she felt she was not getting the proper respect due
her noble birth. Much of the audience seemed to feel she was such a
bitch that she was funny, but I was not amused. And the rest of the
cast were so ruddy noble that I had no sympathy for them either. (Am
I being sexist when I can laugh at Don Giovanni, but not at Vittelia?)
And the opera was much too talky, full of long recitatifs intended to
hustle through a lot of plot. Yes, there were some nice moments,
especially in the ensembles, but they were too far apart.
So in the end it came down to enjoying the staging, which was, as almost
always at the Santa Fe Opera, superb. They burned the Roman Capital
right in front of us.