172. La clemenza di Tito (Mozart)

• Opera seria in 2 acts
• Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
• Libretto: Caterino Mazzolà, after Metastasio
• First performed: Estates Theatre, Prague, 6 September 1791

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TITO [Titus], Emperor of Rome	Tenor	Antonio Baglioni
VITELLIA, Daughter of the deposed emperor Vitellius	Soprano	Maria Marchetti-Fantozzi
SESTO, A young patrician, friend of Tito, in love with Vitellia	Soprano castrato	Domenico Bedini
ANNIO, A young patrician, friend of Sesto, in love with Servilia	Soprano	Carolina Perini
SERVILIA, Sister of Sesto, in love with Annio		Antonina Campi, née Mikłaszewicz (also called Signora Antonini)
PUBLIO, Praetorian prefect, commander of the Praetorian Guard	Bass	Gaetano Campi

SETTING: Ancient Rome, 79.

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This opera is not to be confused with La clemenza di Tito Andronico, words by Bill Shaksper, music by Mozart. Contains the famous aria ‘Come scoglio’ (lit. ‘For now I stand as one upon a rock’).

The clemency of Domitian was terrible. “He impudently prefaced all his most savage sentences with the same little speech about mercy,” Suetonius records; “indeed, this preamble soon became a recognized sign that something dreadful was on the way.” The enigmatic emperor was murdered at 44, justifying his remark that nobody believed an emperor’s life was in danger until he was assassinated.

Almost everybody loved his elder brother Titus, the darling of the people. He was, Suetonius notes, universally loved and adored. But, we may cynically wonder, was this benevolence innate or policy? Before he took the purple, Suetonius tells us, he was not only unpopular but venomously loathed; the people expected a second Nero: profligate, cruel, lustful, and corrupt. He made a great show of virtue: he sent away his Jewish mistress, Berenice; was generous with the people (“My friends, I have lost a day!” he exclaimed at dinner when he had done nobody any favours); and would not kill anybody. He died (of a plague? of poison?) after reigning for 2 years and 22 days, and was promptly deified – the posthumous Roman equivalent of an OBE. But would he have remained so good if he had continued to live? Even Caligula had a glorious start to his reign. And certainly the Jews have no reason to love the man who destroyed the temple at Jerusalem. All very fishy, as Domitian didn’t say when his brother died.

N.B.: Titus Flavius Vespasianus (Titus) is not to be confused with his father, Titus Flavius Vespasianus (Tight-arse). This was the man who taxed everything – including urine. “Ee, lad, does that pong?” he said, waving a coin under his son’s nose. “And yet et cooms from piss. Tha’s nowt mucky about brass!” Even today the Italian and French slang for urinal is vespasiano and vespasienne. (You see, you learn something new every day!)

For later centuries, Titus was held up as a paragon of monarchy: benevolent, reasonable, clement, free from malice or personal desire. Certainly a model for Leopold II, his subjects hoped.

Mozart’s opera was commissioned for the monarch’s coronation as King of Bohemia in Prague. Mozart dashed it off in four weeks; the libretto was an old piece of Metastasio’s that several composers including Gluck had used since 1734.

The opera didn’t please the audience of sozzled aristocrats; the Empress dismissed it as “una porcheria tedesca”; one Count Zinzendorf called it “the most tedious spectacle”. Less snooty audiences liked it, though; it was popular in Germany and Austria, and was the first Mozart opera staged in London. It is performed today, but less so than Mozart’s other works. Critics tend to regard it as a conservative work that Mozart wrote only for dosh.

In certain moods, Tito is my favourite Mozart. Ancient Rome is an obsession of mine; the score contains some of Mozart’s most exquisite, sublime music; and it is a deeply uplifting work. The final scene, a paean to Titus’s humanism, can bring a tear to my eye.

 Vitellia, daughter of the toppled emperor Vitellius (remembered only for his gluttony), persuades her boyfriend Sesto (a woman in drag) to assassinate Titus. He fails. Titus pardons his friends.

The overture is a splendid allegro in C major. The first act contains the lovely duet (No. 7), a gentle tender moment as two characters part (they imagine) forever, tinged with melancholy and resignation. The sombre finale is punctuated by cries of dismay, and ends in a sombre quintet and chorus of great power that fade away. Act II has a majestic andante chorus (No. 15) rather in the manner of Gluck, and two excellent trios. Tito’s da capo ‘Se all’impero’ is one of Mozart’s best arias; Vitellia has a moving rondo (‘Non più di fiori’); and the opera ends with a sublime sextet finale.

The opera’s chief ‘defect’ is its lofty, elevated tone; it is a debate about clementia. Witness the scene (I, x) where Titus wonders whether to execute or pardon Sesto. His friend is disloyal – then avenge his disregard and scorn for the emperor’s clemency. But can Titus harbor such feelings? – Then let him live. – But what about the laws? Sesto is guilty, let him die. – But then Titus does violence to his feelings. Is he even sure others will approve? Is he forsaking his usual benevolence? – His friend will live. Even though a traitor. Let the world accuse Titus of mercy rather than severity (rigour).

Seneca (De Clementia) argues the monarch should be led by logos (universal reason) rather than private passion. He defined clemency as humanity and forbearance, rather than pity or unmotivated generosity; it is a rational decision to be humane. Seneca identified it as a Stoic and Epicurean virtue, and called it the most human of all virtues, and the most fitting for men (I.3.2). The recipient of this advice, Nero, took little heed.

For Greek philosophers, Vahl argues, it was a mixture not just of mercy and forgiveness but of moderation, benevolence, leniency, and mildness: “the quality of self-control and self-restraint that a king shows to his loyal subjects. This in turn led to the security of the state and of the king, because he is mild and able to rule fairly.” It also, though, Vahl argues, implies the power and rightness of the victor pardoning a transgressor; it can only be bestowed upon those of lower status.

Surprisingly, Vahl notes that clementia did not figure much in the art of the Flavians. It had attracted negative connotations under Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero (“under them it became a farce and was often indistinguishable from crudelitas”) and Vitellius (who used it to secure the support of the Spaniards, but his decadence was too much like Nero’s). “Clementia,” Vahl concludes, “was a way for the emperor to connect himself to earlier leaders, but each seemed to lack a full understanding of the virtue.” It reappeared under Trajan, a paedophile with an Alexander complex.

Metastasio’s Tito embodies clementia; as Annio remarks, “ha l’impero e del mondo, e di sè”; Sesto calls him “il più grande, il più giusto, il più clemente Principe della terra”. He sends Berenice away; he refuses to listen to maiestas charges; he rejects a Senate offer to build a temple and worship him as a god (an honour, incidentally, never paid to Titus in his life), and insists that the gold be used to help the survivors of Vesuvius.

Clemency is the emperor’s policy. Do even the stars try to turn him cruel? They shall not. His strength, he declares, is pledged; let us see whether others’ perfidy or Titus’s clemency will endure. (II.xv) The emperor makes it known that he is unchanged; he knows all, he pardons all, he forgets all. Se mi negate che benefico io sia che mi lasciate? (“If you deny me genrosity, what do you leave me?”)

But the emperor is not alone in his virtue; almost all the other characters are equally principled. Annio yields his love for Servilia that Tito may marry her (the duty of a generous lover and a loyal subject); she reveals to Tito that she cannot accept his offer. Sesto refuses to implicate Vitellia. She alone is motivated by unworthy concerns; she wants the throne, she is jealous of Tito, she uses her sexuality to manipulate Sesto. Only at the end does she confess, even though it means renouncing the throne.

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WORKS CONSULTED

• David Cairns, Mozart and His Operas, London: Allen Lane, 2006.
• Edward J. Dent, Mozart’s Operas: A Critical Study, 2nd edition, Oxford University Press, 1947.
• Alfred Einstein, Mozart: his character – his work, trans. Arthur Mendel and Nathan Broder, London: Cassell, 1946.
• Charles Osborne, The Complete Operas of Mozart, London: Victor Gollancz, 1978.
• Jessica Vahl, “Imperial representations of clementia: From Augustus to Marcus Aurelius”, McMaster University, Ontario, 2007, https://macsphere.mcmaster.ca/bitstream/11375/10272/1/fulltext.pdf.