The Clemency of Titus A Zeneakadémia saját szervezésű programja

“Una porcheria tedesca” (or “German swinishness”) – this is how Empress Maria Luisa dismissed Mozart’s final opera that the Estates of Bohemia had commissioned to celebrate the coronation of her husband, His Royal Highness King Leopold II. The Empress’ scorn, which has entered into the annals of musical anecdotes, should not dissuade us from appreciating this the final masterpiece in the opera seria genre, which, in common with numerous other opera seria works, is a dream about the perfect ruler: it speaks of an emperor who even in the storm of passion and amidst a tangle of emotions is still capable of rising above himself in order to exercise one of the most important classical virtues of the sovereign: clemency. Roman Emperor Titus, who reigned from AD 79 to 81 and who for several centuries was regarded as the ideal of a good ruler, had already featured in the lead role of a whole line of operae serie before Mozart’s time, although nowadays this noble figure, who forgives the act of betrayal, is perhaps better known to us from this opera of 1791. Here the work is performed under the experienced musical eye of György Vashegyi on period instruments and with top-class singers and the magnificent Purcell Choir. At one time this opera was received by the court audience with little understanding; however, it won greater applause among connoisseurs.