La Clemenza di Tito

La Clemenza di Tito (The Clemency of Titus), K. 621, was an opera seria written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It was in fact his very last opera, being started after the bulk of Die Zauberflöte was already written (though Mozart did not complete Die Zauberflöte until his return to Vienna after the Prague premiere of Tito) . Alleged by Mozart's earliest biographer Niemetschek to have been completed in just 18 days--in such haste that the simple recitatives were supplied by another, probably Mozart's pupil Süssmayr--, Tito was commissioned for the coronation of Emperor Leopold II as King of Bohemia.

Related Topics:
K - Opera seria - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Die Zauberflöte - Prague - Süssmayr - Coronation - Emperor Leopold II - Bohemia

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The opera was first performed on September 6, 1791 at the Estates Theatre in Prague.

Related Topics:
September 6 - 1791

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It remained popular for many years after Mozart's death (Stivender, p. 502). But for a long time Mozart scholars regarded Tito as an inferior effort of the composer. Alfred Einstein 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"--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 considers it to show Mozart "responding with music of restraint, nobility and warmth to a new kind of stimulus" (New Grove Mozart, p. 164).

Related Topics:
Alfred Einstein - 1945

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The opera is based on a libretto by Metastasio, edited into a more useful state by court poet Caterino Mazzolà, whom, unusually, Mozart credited for his revision in Mozart's own catalog of his compositions. The story is based on the life of Roman Emperor Titus Flavius Vespasianus, and was elaborated by Metastasio from some brief hints in the Lives of the Caesars by the Roman writer Suetonius.

Related Topics:
Libretto - Metastasio - Titus Flavius Vespasianus - Suetonius

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Given the similarity of Mozart's score and plot with some aspects of La Clemenza di Scipione by Johann Christian Bach, it is likely that Mozart knew and was influenced by the older composer's work to a certain extent.

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