The clemency of Titus

The Emperor Titus is mild, mild to the point of self-mutilation. For the sake of the state, he denies himself every desire, every feeling, every human need, however understandable, be it for his beloved Berenice or for revenge on an unfaithful friend. Is so much humanistic enlightenment really for the good of mankind?

In his opera seria, premiered in 1791 at the National Theatre in Prague to mark the coronation of Emperor Leopold II as King of Bohemia, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart at any rate expresses quiet reservations about the ideology of absolute self-renunciation. At the same time, the obligatory happy ending would be unthinkable without the dominated ruler. For while all the other characters in this intriguing court drama run blindly and deafly after their changing passions, the deceived emperor can do what he always wanted to do in the end: forgive. With his characteristic ambiguity, the composer Mozart thus created a psychologically multi-layered political thriller of timeless human complexity.

After her poetic and sensual production of The Fairy Queen , director and set designer Mirella Weingarten returns to the Landestheater with La clemenza di Tito and sets a philosophically profound classic of the opera repertoire in eloquent images.