LA CLEMENZA DI TITO Comes to Opera Ballet Vlaanderen in October
Milo Rau exposes the self-preserving strategies of the elite with Mozart's opera about the merciful Emperor Tito.
By: Stephi Wild Jun. 19, 2023
Vitellia loves Tito, the emperor of the Roman Empire. When he doesn't return her love, she and Tito's confidant Sesto hatch a plan to kill him in order to gain power herself. The attack fails. Tito refuses to punish his assailants and eventually grants them clemency.
With this political and profoundly human story – one of his very last compositions – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart created a music-theatrical masterpiece in which virtuoso arias and grandiose ensembles predominate. But is Tito really that merciful? That is the question Swiss director Milo Rau asks himself in his lecture.
Rau places Tito in the midst of a political and artistic elitist world in which his goodness is exposed as a hidden strategy of self-preservation. Just as in his theater work, Rau also invites non-professional players in this opera. In both grand scenes and intimate documentary scenes, they meet the excellent cast of soloists and the Chorus and Orchestra of Opera Ballet Vlaanderen under the inspiring leadership of music director Alejo Pérez.
Performances run October 9-26, 2023.
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