La clemenza di Tito

Vitellia loves Tito, the emperor of the Roman Empire. When he does not return her love, she and Tito’s confidant Sesto hatch a plan to kill him in order to seize the throne for 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 monumental ensembles predominate. But is Tito really all that merciful? That is the question Swiss director Milo Rau asks himself in his interpretation.

Rau places Tito in the midst of an elitist political and artistic world in which his kindheartedness is exposed as a hidden strategy of self-preservation. Just as in his theatre work, Rau also invites nonprofessional performers to take part in this opera. In both grand tableaux 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.