White Shirt Monday: Murder She Fioritured

[Two mezzo dudes who couldn’t plot their way out of a paper bag, and a soprano who brings the murder plot: this is one Jane Austen novel I would read. – Stephanie d’Oustrac (Sesto), Lidia Vinyes-Curtis (Annio) and Myrtò Papatanasiu (Vitellia) in Mozart’s “La clemenza di Tito”, Barcelona 2020.]

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The Liceu is putting in McVicar’s empire waist “La clemenza di Byron”, which means Mozart seria, mezzos in boots, and one favorite lyric soprano brooding and scheming around a set of stairs and busts (the soprano, criminally, has been given a sleeved dress because there are things neither Austen nor Byron have forseen).

d’Oustrac has been a favorite for a while, too, with that mix of casualness and intensity she puts to her characters and that had everyone under the thumb of her Aix Coveralls Carmen ™. I last heard her Sesto under Currentzis next to Gauvin and de Bique (realizing, again, what blessed life I lead) and am happy to see her cast in this again. Equally happy, of course, to see Papatanasiu in another Mozart seria role. This combo should be some push-and-pull stance energy for the ages.

The Liceu has been generous on both Twitter and Instagram (and possibly Facebook) with press footage, opening night is on tomorrow, and there still are some tickets for the run available, if you happen to be in Barcelona this week.