La clemenza di Tito

How does one defend the image of an enlightened, wise monarchy in an age of revolution? By commissioning Salieri to write an opera about a great sovereign of the past — or so Leopold II must have reasoned in August 1791, amid the preparations for his own coronation. Unfortunately, Salieri proves too busy, and the commission falls to Mozart instead. Yet the Salzburg genius is himself in the midst of a period of extraordinary creative intensity: in July he had been commissioned — anonymously, since the patron, Count von Walsegg, wished to pass it off as his own — to write the Requiem, and for several weeks he had already been at work on a new opera, The Magic Flute. Even so, he manages to complete the opera for the future king in just eighteen days.

La clemenza di Tito is the fruit of this densely packed summer, the last of Mozart's life. The libretto, adapted by Caterino Mazzolà from Metastasio's original, harks back to the golden age of opera seria. Despite the less than flattering remarks of Leopold's wife, Maria Luisa of Bourbon, La clemenza di Tito went on to enjoy growing and lasting success, performed across Europe well into the nineteenth century — testament to Mozart's extraordinary gift for producing masterpieces in the most disparate of genres, sometimes only days apart.How does one defend the image of an enlightened, wise monarchy in an age of revolution? By commissioning Salieri to write an opera about a great sovereign of the past — or so Leopold II must have reasoned in August 1791, amid the preparations for his own coronation. Unfortunately, Salieri proves too busy, and the commission falls to Mozart instead. Yet the Salzburg genius is himself in the midst of a period of extraordinary creative intensity: in July he had been commissioned — anonymously, since the patron, Count von Walsegg, wished to pass it off as his own — to write the Requiem, and for several weeks he had already been at work on a new opera, The Magic Flute. Even so, he manages to complete the opera for the future king in just eighteen days.

La clemenza di Tito is the fruit of this densely packed summer, the last of Mozart's life. The libretto, adapted by Caterino Mazzolà from Metastasio's original, harks back to the golden age of opera seria. Despite the less than flattering remarks of Leopold's wife, Maria Luisa of Bourbon, La clemenza di Tito went on to enjoy growing and lasting success, performed across Europe well into the nineteenth century — testament to Mozart's extraordinary gift for producing masterpieces in the most disparate of genres, sometimes only days apart.