Mozart: La clemenza di Tito, K. 621

Another monumental musician of our time is without doubt the very great opera conductor James Levine. On this recording he can be heard at the age of 34 in a Ponnelle production of Mozart’s last opera La clemenza di Tito – which fits nicely with this year’s programme – in what was an exciting time of upheaval: just before the epoch-making change in musical practice we associate with the name Harnoncourt and which began coincidentally with Mozart’s other ‘opera seria’ Idomeneo. Here ‘Jimmy’ Levine delivers an energetic, ‘full’ and astute performance, not least thanks to a superbly well-suited ensemble of singers and a Vienna Philharmonic in excellent form: a reading so convincing and overwhelming that we realize with astonishment once again that prior to the supposed ‘salvation’ and ‘rediscovery’ there were indeed very, very good performances of works still considered challenging today.