Symphony Concert 6: La clemenza di Tito at Komische Oper Berlin

Emperor Titus becomes embroiled in a musical thriller involving love, intrigue, political power struggles and hubris in ancient Rome. Following productions of his early works Il re pastore and Lucio Silla in the preceding two seasons, Mozart's penultimate opera, written at the same time as The Magic Flute, is now to receive its concert performance.

Emperor Titus is seen as a level-headed and merciful ruler. Yet despite making even his own marriage plans secondary to the public good, he unwillingly causes nothing but ill feeling, dashed hopes and betrayal in his immediate circle: because Vitellia, the daughter of Titus' murdered predecessor, is disappointed in her hopes of an offer of marriage from the emperor, she instigates an intrigue against the ruler. She manages to persuade Sesto, a childhood friend of Titus who is hopelessly in love with her, to attempt to assassinate the emperor. The attempt fails, and Vitellio and Sesto await their death sentence. Yet even in the depths of personal disappointment, Emperor Titus proves himself to be merciful.

In La clemenza di Tito, Mozart breaks with all the formal conventions of opera seria by managing to take the raging dichotomy of emotions between love and hate, revenge and benevolence which threatens to swallow up all the characters in the plot and expand it into a musical stream of arias and breathless ensemble numbers. Vitellia's famous »Non più di fiori« and Sesto's »Parto, parto« are jewels in a score which reflect Mozart's boundless creativity just months before his early death.