La clemenza di Tito

La clemenza di Tito is an opera of intense passions, woven through love, betrayal, and forgiveness. David McVicar’s production at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence stands out for its visual power and for its profound psychological portrait of the characters. At the helm, maestro Jordi Savall brings a reading of exceptional elegance and poetic depth. With a transparent, incisive, and richly coloured direction, Savall reveals the full dramatic modernity of Mozart and rekindles the moral energy that runs through this work.

Composed in just six weeks for the coronation of Leopold II in Prague in 1791, La clemenza di Tito presents a solitary emperor, wounded by the betrayal of those around him, yet capable of responding with a clemency that makes him a symbol of a higher political ethic. The contrast with Vitellia’s manipulative darkness and with Sesto’s torment, torn between loyalty and desire, creates a drama of exceptional intensity.

Its musical architecture heightens this depth: Tito’s noble arias stand in contrast to Sesto’s inner turmoil —such as the virtuosic Parto, parto— and to the penitential tension of Deh, per questo istante solo. Mozart moves between turbulence and elevation, between human weakness and moral strength.

Premiered three months before the composer’s death, the opera fascinated the nineteenth century and remains a dramatic miracle in which sex, power, and political ambition are combined with a radical commitment to mercy. With a first-rate cast —Jack Swanson (Tito), Marianne Crebassa (Sesto), and Karine Deshayes (Vitellia)—, McVicar’s reading emerges with a contemporary intensity that reinforces the message.

If the Enlightenment places its faith in reconciliation, Mozart sublimates it in a work that raises forgiveness into a transformative force. A luminous and visionary ending that anticipates Beethoven and consecrates Mozart’s last opera seria as a moral and theatrical triumph.