Mozart on trial

So the idea is that Mozart is being judged in purgatory or somewhere, and he calls upon the characters from his operas to defend him, showing how he transformed all the deadly sins in his music.

It was an amusing premise as an excuse for an hour's recital of group recitatives and arias from Figaro, Don Giovanni, Clemenza di Tito, Idomeneo, Abduction from the Seraglio, and even The Impresario (Der Schauspieldirektor) and the stunningly obscure Mitridate by a large clutch of Stanford students.

The singers almost all had good voices, even the ones whose bellows were too small to rise above even the ridiculously cut-down orchestra accompanying them. But none of them could emote worth a damn, and so nothing arose dramatically at all. It was just a lot of pretty singing. Come on, those two characters from Tito are plotting to kill somebody; pretend you care!

It was pretty singing, though. There was one tenor whose voice one might dare to call beautiful, and a few of the women had both strong pipes and the ability to control them. It was a free concert, and worth the trouble.