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La Clemenza di Tito State Opera Vienna - Wien Sun 20.Sep 2026 19:00 replace me !La Clemenza di Tito State Opera Vienna - Wien Wed 23.Sep 2026 19:00 replace me !La Clemenza di Tito State Opera Vienna - Wien Sat 26.Sep 2026 19:30 replace me !La Clemenza di Tito State Opera Vienna - Wien Tue 29.Sep 2026 19:00 replace me !Unaware of the threats surrounding him, the Roman Emperor Tito tries to live up to his office and his own standards.
He generously forgives his opponents and helps the victims of the Vesuvius eruption. He also releases Servilia when her lover Annio asks him to do so. But Vitellia, who is striving for power, incites Sesto to murder and riot. When the Capitol burns and Sesto confesses, Tito must decide: punishment or leniency.
In his production, director Jan Lauwers refrains from imposing simple good/bad stereotypes on the characters. Instead, he explores the complexity of the characters and shows - as Mozart demanded - a "true opera", i.e. real people, real landscapes of the soul. He succeeds in interweaving music and image, video and dance, space and sound to create a comprehensive work of art. Ambiguity is the defining principle here: Lauwers creates a space rich in associations into which one can intuitively immerse oneself. In the spirit of ambiguity, the director locates the action neither in time nor place, but creates timeless images full of suggestive narrative power.
In accordance with the composition commission and the original, a libretto by Pietro Metastasio, Mozart took a look back at opera seria with La clemenza di Tito . However, by working with a version by the Dresden court poet Caterino Mazzolà that was "reduced to a true opera" according to his catalog of works, the composer had a more compact version at his disposal that was more accommodating to the musical dynamics: only seven of the original 25 arias were retained, four with new text were added.
Even within the "strict form" praised at the time of composition, Mozart achieves moving moments such as the duet no. 7 (Annio and Servilia), while the quintet for the finale of the first act is an exciting action finale that goes beyond the older opera seria and is even reminiscent of the finales of Da Ponte's operas. Also noteworthy are the arias with obbligato clarinet and bass horn solo (No. 9, Sesto and No. 23, Vitellia), which Mozart wrote for his friend and lodge brother Anton Stadler, a virtuoso on both instruments.
Order your tickets for the Vienna State Opera and book your tickets now at viennaticket.at.The Bohemian Estates had commissioned the work as a coronation opera for the coronation of Emperor Leopold II – a coronation that Joseph II had still refused. La clemenza di Tito was also intended by the Estates, dominated by the clergy and nobility, as an appeal to Leopold's leniency in the sense that they hoped Joseph II's centralist reforms would be reversed in favor of regional privileges. A hope that was disappointed.
In contrast to Metastasio's version, the opera by the freemason Mozart, which was premiered in the face of the French Revolution, is striking in that the ruler's clemency is no longer explained by his divine right but by his own moral convictions.
(Source: wiener-staatsoper.at)
