Mozart: Idomeneoby Anonymous

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September 22, 2006: My preference for serious opera has led me to invest in Idomeneo and La Clemenza di Tito and to pass up Cosi fan tutte. Gardiner's versions of both serious operas are impeccable. La Clemenza di Tito is a celebrative opera honoring a new Holy Roman Emperor by suggesting that his clemency will hopefully equal that of Emperor Titus.' Idomeneo is a full-fledged mythological opera comparable to those of Lully, Rameau and Gluck. The style, however, differs fundamentally even from Gluck's. Mozart's commitment to fluency and beauty in every passage results in a different texture filled more with sonorousness than drama as I hear it. Idomeneo is never comic but the style is closer to Jommelli's and never as serious as Gluck's. After a typically brisk overture, Mozart achieves his version of seriousness by beginning with complaints by the captive Ilia. The composer's commitment to fluent beauty, however, overrules any sort of lasting starkness and the dark passages are soon over. The opera is about as serious as Mozart gets aside from isolated passages in Don Giovanni. The reason is the plot. Idomeneo has been forced by the god Poseidon to sacrifice the first man he sees on shore at Crete after his return from Troy. The tug of war between the king and malign fate (or Poseidon) must be dealt with seriously and is.