Dressed to thrill

Mitridate, re di Ponto was Mozart’s fifth opera, written and first produced when he was 14 years old. Absolutely amazing. Now we’ve got that out of the way, what about the work? Is it worth reviving, and if so how? The Royal Opera evidently thinks so, since it is reviving for the second time Graham Vick’s production from 1991. There are, of course, several Graham Vicks, the magnificent one who founded Birmingham Opera Company and has adventurously staged many extraordinary productions, in line with his view that opera needs to change radically if it is to survive, and not be a mere plaything for the idle rich; the one, somewhat at odds with that, who put on controversial, even deliberately disgusting productions of the great Mozart operas at Glyndebourne; and the one whose staging of Mitridate is most notable for its lavishness — the cost of the costumes alone would be enough to run a provincial opera house for a year. If you put on a work as intrinsically uninteresting (and lengthy) as Mitridate you have to do something to ward off tedium, so maybe the only solution is to have the characters all dressed as galleons, sailing in with hooped dresses about four yards wide, with armour on top, and regardless of sex. What with the costumes and the number of women and a countertenor taking male roles, the production must have seemed premonitory when first staged, though now seems merely trendy. The sets are not so elaborate, but the vividness of the colours and lighting are very attractive.