Jonathan Miller’s Magnificent Middle Way

Two problems that plague almost all current productions of Mozart are those of directorial adaptation and period performance practice. This May, director Calixto Bieito – whose vision for practically every opera includes explicit references to rape and drugs – made Mozart’s “Abduction from the Seraglio” his latest victim. Rene Jacobs’s recent recordings, first of “Cosi,” and, this year, of “Le Nozze di Figaro,” have been shocking in a different way: with chee tah-quick tempi, extreme if not exorbitant ornamentation, and an often visceral approach to rhythm.