What were you doing when you were 14?If you were Mozart, you were working on a three act opera titled “Mitridate re di Ponto” which is our featured work on this week’s Sunday Opera (2/15 3:00 p.m.) in a recording from 2014.
Based on an Italian translation of a play by Racine, the libretto by Vittorio Amedeo Cigna-Santi seems to have been one of the most adapted in the world of opera spawning over 70 complete works. Written during the summer of 1770, Mozart’s version had it’s premier on December 26th of that year, would be presented 21 more times, and then virtually disappear. In this recording, it’s been reconstructed by Ian Page. The unusual aspect of this work is that it’s almost all solo arias featuring only one duet at the end of the second act, and an “ensemble” finale.
The opera takes place around the Crimean port of Nymphaea around 63 BC.
The governor of Nymphaea, Arbate (Anna Devin), brings news that Mitridate (Barry Banks) has been killed in battle against the Romans. This means that his fiancé, Aspasia (Miah Persson) is now being pursued by a variety of suitors including the eldest of Mitridate’s sons, Farnace (Lawrence Zazzo).
Mitridate’s younger son, Sifare (Sophie Bevan), is enroute back to Nymphaea with the proposed wife of Farnace, Ismene (Klara Ek) who is a Parthian Princess. When Sifare arrives, Ismene turns to him in the hopes that he will protect him from Farnace and Arbate which he happily does because he too has fallen in love with her.
It happens that Mitridate is not dead, and when he returns, he questions Aspasia about her fidelity, sees she is in love with another, and imprisons her and Sifare.
In the end, Mitridate heads off to another war against the Romans, and he is joined by Sifare who doesn’t want to live without Aspasia. Farnace, who up to now has been working with a Roman legionnaire officer Marzio (Robert Murray), has a change of heart and decides to fight with his father against the Romans.
Mitridate is defeated and commits suicide so that he will not be taken as a prisoner, but before he dies, he forgives his sons and blesses the union of Apsasia and Sifare. By this time, Farnace has fallen in love with Ismene, and the four promise to continue the fight against Rome in order to save the world from Rome’s advances.
They’re joined by Ian Page who conducts The Orchestra of Classical Opera.
After the opera, we’ll have two more interesting pieces by Mozart. The first is his String Quartet No. 19 in C major, K465 known as the “Dissonance” quartet because of the counterpoint in the introduction. It will be performed by the Eder Quartet. Our second work is a unique piece originally written for a blind virtuoso on the glass harmonica named Marianne Kirchgessner. The piece is the Adagio and rondo in C minor, k617 – written for glass harmonica, flute, oboe, viola, and cello, this performance features Bruno Hoffman (glass harmonica), Gustav Scheck (flute), Helmut Winschermann (oboe), Emil Seiler (viola), and August Wenzinger (cello).
