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La clemenza di Tito (The Clemency of Titus), K.
Köchel-Verzeichnis

The K?chel-Verzeichnis is a complete, chronological catalogue of compositions by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart which was originally created by Ludwig Ritter von K?chel....
 621, is an opera seria
Opera seria

Opera seria is an Italian musical term which refers to the noble and "serious" style of Italian opera that predominated in Europe from the 1710s to ca....
 composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood in Salzburg. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty; at seventeen he was engaged as a court musician in Salzburg, but grew restless and traveled in search of a better position, always...
, with text after Metastasio
Metastasio

Pietro Antonio Domenico Trapassi, better known by his pseudonym of Metastasio, was an Italy poet and librettist, considered the most important writer of opera seria libretti....
. It was started after the bulk of The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute

The Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....
, the last opera that Mozart worked on, was already written (Mozart completed The Magic Flute after the Prague
Prague

Prague is the Capital and World's largest cities of the Czech Republic. Its official name is Hlavn? mesto Praha, meaning Prague, the Capital City....
 premiere of Tito).

uly 1791, the last year of his life, Mozart was already well advanced in writing The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute

The Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....
 when he was asked to compose an opera seria.






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La clemenza di Tito (The Clemency of Titus), K.
Köchel-Verzeichnis

The K?chel-Verzeichnis is a complete, chronological catalogue of compositions by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart which was originally created by Ludwig Ritter von K?chel....
 621, is an opera seria
Opera seria

Opera seria is an Italian musical term which refers to the noble and "serious" style of Italian opera that predominated in Europe from the 1710s to ca....
 composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood in Salzburg. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty; at seventeen he was engaged as a court musician in Salzburg, but grew restless and traveled in search of a better position, always...
, with text after Metastasio
Metastasio

Pietro Antonio Domenico Trapassi, better known by his pseudonym of Metastasio, was an Italy poet and librettist, considered the most important writer of opera seria libretti....
. It was started after the bulk of The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute

The Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....
, the last opera that Mozart worked on, was already written (Mozart completed The Magic Flute after the Prague
Prague

Prague is the Capital and World's largest cities of the Czech Republic. Its official name is Hlavn? mesto Praha, meaning Prague, the Capital City....
 premiere of Tito).

Background

In July 1791, the last year of his life, Mozart was already well advanced in writing The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute

The Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....
 when he was asked to compose an opera seria. The commission came from the impresario Domenico Guardasoni
Domenico Guardasoni

Domenico Guardasoni was an Italian tenor singer, opera producer and impressario. Singing in Giuseppe Bustelli's touring opera company, he later became its director....
, who lived in Prague and who had been charged by the Estate of Bohemia with providing a new work to celebrate the coronation
Coronation

A coronation is a ceremony marking the investiture of a monarch with regal power, specifically involving the placement of a coronation crown upon his or her head, and the presentation of other items of regalia....
 of Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor
Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor

Leopold II , born Peter Leopold Joseph Anton Joachim Pius Gotthard, was Holy Roman Emperor from 1790 to 1792, King of Hungary, archduke of Austria, and Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1765 to 1790....
 as King of Bohemia
Bohemia

History...
. The ceremony was to take place on September 6; Guardasoni had been approached about the opera in June. There was not much room to manoeuvre.

In a contract dated July 8, Guardasoni promised that he would engage a castrato
Castrato

A castrato is a man with a singing voice equivalent to that of a soprano, mezzo-soprano, or contralto human voice produced either by castration of the singer before puberty or one who, because of an endocrinology condition, never reaches sexual maturity....
 "of leading quality" (this seems to have mattered more than who wrote the opera); that he would "have the libretto caused to be written...and to be set to music by a distinguished maestro". The time was tight and Guardasoni had a get-out clause: if he failed to secure a new text, he would resort to La clemenza di Tito, a libretto
Libretto

A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, sacred or secular oratorio and cantata, Musical theater, and ballet....
 written more than half a century earlier by Pietro Metastasio (1698-1782).

Metastasio's libretto had already been set by nearly 40 composers; the story is based on the life of Roman Emperor Titus
Titus

Titus Flavius Vespasianus, commonly known as Titus , was a Roman Emperor who briefly reigned from 79 until his death in 81. Titus was the second emperor of the Flavian dynasty, which ruled the Roman Empire between 69 and 96, encompassing the reigns of Titus's father Vespasian , Titus himself and his younger brother Domitian ....
, from some brief hints in The Lives of the Caesars by the Roman writer Suetonius
Suetonius

Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, commonly known as Suetonius , was an equestrian and a historian during the Roman Empire. His most important surviving work is a set of biographies on the battles of twelve successive Roman rulers, from Julius Caesar until Domitian, entitled On the Life of the Caesars....
, and was elaborated by Metastasio in 1734 for the Italian composer Antonio Caldara
Antonio Caldara

Antonio Caldara was an Italy Baroque composer.Caldara was born in Venice , the son of a violinist. He became a chorister at St Mark's Cathedral in Venice, where he learned several instruments, probably under the instruction of Giovanni Legrenzi....
. Among later settings were Gluck's in 1752 and Josef Myslivecek
Josef Myslivecek

Josef Myslivecek was a Czechs composer who contributed to the formation of late eighteenth-century classicism in music....
's in 1774; there would be three further settings after 1791. Mozart was not Guardasoni's first choice. Instead, he approached Antonio Salieri
Antonio Salieri

Antonio Salieri , was a Republic of Venice composer and Conducting. As the Austrian imperial Kapellmeister from 1788 to 1824, he was one of the most important and famous musicians of his time....
, who, as the most distinguished composer of Italian opera in Vienna and head of the music establishment at the imperial court. But Salieri was too busy, and he declined the commission, although he did attend the coronation.

The libretto was edited into a more useful state by court poet Caterino Mazzolà, whom, unusually, Mozart credited for his revision in his own catalogue of his compositions. Guardasoni's experience of Mozart's work on Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni

Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with Italian language libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered in the Estates Theatre in Prague on October 29, 1787 in music....
 convinced him that the younger composer was more than capable of working on the tightest deadline. Mozart had no hesitation in accepting Guardasoni's offer - how could he resist when Guardasoni offered him twice the fee he was used to receive for an opera in Vienna? Mozart's earliest biographer Niemetschek alleged that the opera was completed in just 18 days, and in such haste that the secco recitative
Recitative

Recitative is a style of delivery in which a singer is allowed to adopt the rhythms of ordinary speech. The mostly syllabic recitativo secco is at one end of a spectrum through recitativo accompagnato , the more melismatic arioso, and finally the full blown aria or ensemble, where the pulse is entirely governed by the mus...
s were supplied by another composer, probably Mozart's pupil Süssmayr.

It is not known what Leopold thought of the opera written in his honor. Reports that his wife Maria Louisa dismissed it as porcheria tedesca, or "German swinishness," do not pre-date Alfred Meissner's Rococo-Bilder (Prague, 1871), a collection of literary vignettes about the history of Prague purportedly based on recollections of the author's grandfather, who was present for the coronation ceremonies.

Orchestration

The opera
Opera

Opera is an Performing arts in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work which combines a text and a musical score. Opera is part of the Western classical music tradition....
 is scored for:
  • 2 transverse flute
    Transverse flute

    A transverse flute or side-blown flute is a flute which is held horizontally when played. The player blows "across" the embouchure hole, in a direction perpendicular to the flute's body length....
    s, 2 oboe
    Oboe

    The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois", "hoboy", or "French hoboy"....
    s, 2 clarinet
    Clarinet

    The clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The name derives from adding the suffix -et meaning little to the Italian word clarino meaning a particular type of trumpet, as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet....
    s, (I also basset clarinet
    Basset clarinet

    The basset clarinet is a clarinet, similar to the usual soprano clarinet but longer and with additional keys to enable playing several additional lower notes....
     and basset horn), 2 bassoon
    Bassoon

    The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the Bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher....
    s
  • 2 French horns, 2 trumpet
    Trumpet

    The trumpet is a musical instrument with the highest Register in the brass instrument family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BC....
    s
  • timpani
    Timpani

    Timpani are musical instruments in the percussion instrument family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a drumhead stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper, and more recently, constructed of more lightweight fiberglass....
  • Strings
    String instrument

    A string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones....
    .
Basso continuo in recitativi secchi is made of cembalo
Cembalo

Cembalo may refer to:* The name for harpsichord in German and other languages, commonly appearing in musical instructions* The town of Balaklava, Crimea, named Cembalo by the Genoese traders in 13-15th centuries...
 and violoncello.

Performance history

The premiere took place a few hours after Leopold's coronation. The role of Sesto was taken by mezzo-soprano, Carolina Perini. The opera was first performed publicly on September 6, 1791 at the Estates Theatre
Estates Theatre

The Estates Theatre or Stavovsk? divadlo is a historic theatre in Prague, Czech Republic. The Estates Theatre was annexed to the National Theatre in 1948 and currently draws on three artistic ensembles, opera, ballet, and drama, which perform at the Estates Theatre, the National Theatre , and the Kolowrat Theatre ....
 in Prague.

The opera remained popular for many years after Mozart's death (Stivender, p. 502); it was the first Mozart opera to reach London, receiving its premier there at His Majesty's Theatre in 1806. But for a long time, Mozart scholars regarded Tito as an inferior effort of the composer. Alfred Einstein
Alfred Einstein

Alfred Einstein was a German-American musicologist and music editor. He was noted as one of the widest-ranging music historians in the first half of the 20th century....
 in 1945 wrote that it was "customary to speak disparagingly of La clemenza di Tito and to dismiss it as the product of haste and fatigue," and he continues the disparagement to some extent by condemning the characters as puppets — e.g., "Tito is nothing but a mere puppet representing magnanimity
Magnanimity

Magnanimity is the virtue of being great of mind and heart. It encompasses, usually, a refusal to be petty, a willingness to face danger, and actions for noble purposes....
" — and claiming that the opera seria was already a moribund form (Einstein, Mozart, pp. 408-11). However, in recent years the opera has undergone something of a reappraisal. Stanley Sadie
Stanley Sadie

Stanley Sadie Order of the British Empire was a leading United Kingdom musicology, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , which was published as the first edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians....
 considers it to show Mozart "responding with music of restraint, nobility and warmth to a new kind of stimulus" (New Grove Mozart, p. 164).

The opera was the inspiration for the 2006 film Daratt
Daratt

Daratt is a 2006 film by Chadian director Mahamat Saleh Haroun. The film was one of seven films from non-Western cultures commissioned by Peter Sellars' New Crowned Hope Festival to commemorate the 250th birthday of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart....
, by Chad
Chad

Chad , officially known as the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country in central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic to the south, Cameroon and Nigeria to the southwest, and Niger to the west....
ian director Mahamat Saleh Haroun
Mahamat Saleh Haroun

Mahamat-Saleh Haroun is a film director from Chad who has lived in France since 1982. He made his first feature film, Bye Bye Africa, in 1999....
.

Roles

RoleVoice typePremiere Cast, September 6, 1791
(Conductor: - )
Titotenor
Tenor

The tenor is a type of male voice type and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between the C one octave below middle C to the A above in choral music, and up to high C in solo work....
Antonio Baglioni
Vitelliasoprano
Soprano

A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four part chorale style harmony the soprano takes the highest part which usually encompasses the melody....
Maria Marchetti-Fantozzi
ServiliasopranoAntonina Miklaszewicz
Sestomezzo-soprano
Mezzo-soprano

A mezzo-soprano is a type of European classical music female voice type whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above ....
Carolina Perini
Anniomezzo-sopranoDomenico Bedini
PubliobassGaetano Campi


Synopsis


Act 1

Vitellia, daughter of deposed emperor Vitellius, wants revenge against Titus and stirs up Titus's vacillating friend Sextus, who is in love with her, to act against him. But when she hears word that Titus has sent Berenice of Cilicia
Berenice of Cilicia

Berenice of Cilicia, also known as Julia Berenice and sometimes spelled Bernice , was a Jewish Client state of the Roman Empire during the second half of the 1st century....
, of whom she was jealous, back to Jerusalem, Vitellia tells Sextus to delay carrying out her wishes, hoping Titus will choose her (Vitellia) as his empress.

Titus, however, decides to choose Sextus's sister Servilia to be his empress, and orders Annius (Sextus's friend) to bear the message to Servilia. Since Annius and Servilia, unbeknownst to Titus, are in love, this news is very unwelcome to both. Servilia decides to tell Titus the truth but also says that if Titus still insists on marrying her, she will obey. Titus thanks the gods for Servilia's truthfulness and immediately forswears the idea of coming between her and Annius.

In the meantime, however, Vitellia has heard the news about Titus's interest in Servilia and is again boiling with jealousy. She urges Sextus to go assassinate Titus. He agrees, singing one of the opera's most famous arias, "Parto, parto." Almost as soon as he leaves, Annius and the guard Publius arrive to escort Vitellia to Titus, who has now chosen her as his empress. She is torn with feelings of guilt and worry over what she has sent Sextus to do.

Sextus, meanwhile, is at the Capitol wrestling with his conscience as he and his accomplices go about to burn it down. The other characters (except Titus) enter severally and react with horror to the burning Capitol. Sextus reenters and announces that he saw Titus slain, but Vitellia stops him from incriminating himself as the assassin. The others lament Titus in a slow, mournful conclusion to Act I.

Act 2

Begins with Annius telling Sextus that Emperor Titus is in fact alive and has just been seen; in the smoke and chaos, Sextus mistook another for Titus. Soon Publius arrives to arrest Sextus, bearing the news that it was one of Sextus's co-conspirators who dressed himself in Titus's robes and was stabbed, though not mortally, by Sextus. The Senate tries Sextus as Titus waits impatiently, sure that his friend will be exonerated; but the Senate finds him guilty, and an anguished Titus must sign Sextus' death sentence.

He decides to send for Sextus first, attempting to obtain further details about the plot. Sextus takes all the guilt on himself and says he deserves death, so Titus tells him he shall have it and sends him away. But after an extended internal struggle, Titus tears up the execution warrant for Sextus and determines that, if the world wishes to accuse him (Titus) of anything, it can charge him with showing too much mercy rather than with having a revengeful heart.

Vitellia at this time is torn by guilt and decides to confess all to Titus, giving up her hopes of empire in the well-known rondo "Non più di fiori." In the amphitheater, the condemned (including Sextus) are waiting to be thrown to the wild beasts. Titus is about to show mercy when Vitellia offers her confession as the instigator of Sextus's plot. Though shocked, the emperor includes her in the general clemency he offers. The opera concludes with all the subjects praising the extreme generosity of Titus, while he himself asks that the gods cut short his days when he ceases to care for the good of Rome
Rome

Rome is the capital city of Italy and Lazio, and is Italy's largest and most populous city, with 2,724,347 residents in an urban area of some ....
.

Noted arias

  • "Ah, perdona al primo affetto" - Annius (Annio) and Servilia in Act I
  • "Ah se fosse" - Titus (Tito) in Act I
  • "Deh se piacer" - Vitellia in Act I
  • "Del più sublime soglio" - Titus (Tito) in Act I
  • "Parto, parto" - Sextus (Sesto) in Act I
  • "Deh per questo istante" - Sextus (Sesto) in Act II
  • "Non più di fiori" - Vitellia in Act II
  • "S'altro che lagrime" - Servilia in Act II
  • "Se all'impero" - Titus (Tito) in Act II
  • "Tardi s'avvede" - Publius (Publio) in Act II
  • "Torna di Tito a lato" - Annius (Annio) in Act II
  • "Tu fosti tradito" - Annius (Annio) in Act II


Selected recordings

  • István Kertész
    István Kertész

    Istv?n Kert?sz was a world-renowned Hungary orchestral and operatic conducting....
     (1967) - Decca/London, Werner Krenn (Tito), Maria Casula (Vitellia), Teresa Berganza (Sesto), Brigitte Fassbaender (Annio), Lucia Popp (Servilia), Tugomir Franc (Publio), Vienna State Opera Orchestra and Chorus
  • Colin Davis
    Colin Davis

    Sir Colin Rex Davis, Order of the Companions of Honour, Order of the British Empire is an England Conducting. Davis studied the clarinet at the Royal College of Music in London, where he was barred from taking conducting lessons owing to his lack of ability at the piano....
     (1977) - Philips, Stuart Burrows (Tito), Janet Baker (Vitellia), Yvonne Minton (Sesto), Frederica von Stade (Annio), Lucia Popp (Servilia), Robert Lloyd (Publio), Orchestra and Chorus of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
  • Karl Böhm
    Karl Böhm

    Karl August Leopold B?hm was an Austrian Conducting....
     (1979) - Deutsche Grammophon, Peter Schreier (Tito), Julia Varady (Vitellia), Teresa Berganza (Sesto), Marga Schiml (Annio), Edith Mathis (Servilia), Theo Adam (Publio), Dresden State Orchestra and Leipzig Radio Chorus
  • Riccardo Muti
    Riccardo Muti

    Riccardo Muti, Italian orders of merit is an Italian conducting. He is the Music Director Designate of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and will officially start his contract in 2010....
     (1988, issued 1995) - EMI, Gosta Winbergh (Tito), Carol Vaness (Vitellia), Delores Ziegler (Sesto), Martha Senn (Annio), Christine Barbaux (Servilia), Laszlo Polgar (Publio), Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Vienna State Opera Concert Choir
  • John Eliot Gardiner
    John Eliot Gardiner

    Sir John Eliot Gardiner CBE Fellowship of King's College London is an England conducting. He founded the Monteverdi Choir , the English Baroque Soloists and the Orchestre R?volutionnaire et Romantique ....
     (1990) - DG/Archiv, Anthony Rolfe Johnson (Tito), Julia Varady (Vitellia), Anne Sofie von Otter (Sesto), Catherine Robbin (Annio), Sylvia McNair (Servilia), Cornelius Hauptmann (Publio), English Baroque Soloists, Monteverdi Choir
  • Christopher Hogwood
    Christopher Hogwood

    Christopher Jarvis Haley Hogwood CBE, MA , HonMusD is an England conducting, harpsichordist, writer and scholar of music.Hogwood studied music and classical literature at Pembroke College, Cambridge, University of Cambridge....
     (1991-92) - Decca/L'Oiseau-Lyre, Uwe Heilmann (Tito), Della Jones (Vitellia), Cecilia Bartoli (Sesto), Diana Montague (Annio), Barbara Bonney (Servilia), Gilles Cachemaille (Publio), Academy of Ancient Music Orchestra and Chorus
  • Nikolaus Harnoncourt
    Nikolaus Harnoncourt

    Nikolaus Harnoncourt is an Austrian Conducting, particularly known for his historically informed performances of music from the classical music era era and earlier....
     (1993) - Warner/Teldec, Philip Langridge (Tito), Lucia Popp (Vitellia), Ann Murray (Sesto), Delores Ziegler (Annio), Ruth Ziesak (Servilia), Laszlo Polgar (Publio), Zurich Opera Orchestra and Chorus
  • Charles Mackerras
    Charles Mackerras

    Sir Alan Charles Maclaurin Mackerras, Order of Australia, Companion of Honour, Order of the British Empire is an Australian conducting. He is a noted authority on the operas of Jan?cek and Mozart, and the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan....
     (2005) - Deutsche Grammophon, Rainer Trost (Tito), Hillevi Martinpelto (Vitellia), Magdalena Kozena (Sesto), Christine Rice (Annio), Lisa Milne (Servilia), John Relyea (Publio), Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Scottish Baroque Chorus
  • René Jacobs
    René Jacobs

    Ren? Jacobs is a Belgium musician. He came to fame as a countertenor but in recent years has become renowned as a conducting of Baroque and early Classical opera....
     (2006) - Harmonia Mundi
    Harmonia Mundi

    Harmonia Mundi is an independent music record label founded in 1958 by Bernard Coutaz in Arles . The Latin phrase means "world harmony".Its catalog is essentially devoted to classical music, and through the World Village label to world music....
    , Mark Padmore (Tito), Alexandrina Pendatchanska (Vitellia), Bernarda Fink (Sesto), Marie-Claude Chappuis (Annio), Sunhae Im (Servilia), Sergio Foresti (Publio), Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, Berlin RIAS Chamber Chorus


See also

  • List of operas by Mozart
    List of operas by Mozart

    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's operas comprise 22 musical dramas in a variety of genres. They range from the small-scale, derivative works of his youth to the full-fledged operas of his maturity....


Sources

  • David Stivender, ed. and trans., "La Clemenza di Tito" (libretto), in The Metropolitan Opera Book of Mozart Operas, NY: HarperCollins, 1991.
  • Alfred Einstein, Mozart: His Character, His Work, NY: Oxford University Press, 1945.
  • Stanley Sadie, The New Grove Mozart, NY: Norton, 1983.


Scores