Haus für Mozart 1 August 2024 - La clemenza di Tito | GoComGo.com

La clemenza di Tito

Haus für Mozart, Salzburg, Austria
All photos (1)
Thursday 1 August 2024
6:30 PM

E-tickets: Print at home or at the box office of the event if so specified. You will find more information in your booking confirmation email.

You can only select the category, and not the exact seats.
If you order 2 or 3 tickets: your seats will be next to each other.
If you order 4 or more tickets: your seats will be next to each other, or, if this is not possible, we will provide a combination of groups of seats (at least in pairs, for example 2+2 or 2+3).

Important Info
Type: Opera
City: Salzburg, Austria
Starts at: 18:30

E-tickets: Print at home or at the box office of the event if so specified. You will find more information in your booking confirmation email.

You can only select the category, and not the exact seats.
If you order 2 or 3 tickets: your seats will be next to each other.
If you order 4 or more tickets: your seats will be next to each other, or, if this is not possible, we will provide a combination of groups of seats (at least in pairs, for example 2+2 or 2+3).

Overview

New production

Composed shortly after Die Zauberflöte in 1791, but premiered a few weeks earlier, La clemenza di Tito was saddled from the 1820s onwards with a fusty image and outdated reputation. This is undoubtedly due to the libretto being regarded unfavourably: originally written in 1734, it glorified absolutism and no longer seemed relevant. At the same time, the work remains fascinating for the way in which Mozart breaks free from the constraints of opera seria to write music of rare poignancy. When listened to with an open mind, this score is indistinguishable from the rest of his glorious late output. In his typically insightful manner, the director Robert Carsen will tease out the opera’s contemporary resonances.

History
Premiere of this production: 06 September 1791, Estates Theatre, Prague

La clemenza di Tito is an opera seria in two acts composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to an Italian libretto by Caterino Mazzolà, after Pietro Metastasio. It was started after the bulk of Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute), the last opera that Mozart worked on, was already written. The work premiered on 6 September 1791 at the Estates Theatre in Prague.

Synopsis

Place and time: Rome, in the year 79.

Act One
Vitellia, daughter of the late emperor Vitellio (who had been deposed by Tito's father Vespasian), wants revenge against Tito. She stirs up Tito's vacillating friend Sesto, who is in love with her, to act against him (duet Come ti piace, imponi). But when she hears word that Tito has sent Berenice of Cilicia, of whom she was jealous, back to Jerusalem, Vitellia tells Sesto to delay carrying out her wishes, hoping Tito will choose her (Vitellia) as his empress (aria Deh, se piacer mi vuoi).

Tito, however, decides to choose Sesto's sister Servilia to be his empress, and orders Annio (Sesto's friend) to bear the message to Servilia (aria Del più sublime soglio). Since Annio and Servilia, unbeknownst to Tito, are in love, this news is very unwelcome to both (duet Ah, perdona al primo affetto). Servilia decides to tell Tito the truth but also says that if Tito still insists on marrying her, she will obey. Tito thanks the gods for Servilia's truthfulness, and immediately forswears the idea of coming between her and Annio (aria Ah, se fosse intorno al trono).

In the meantime, however, Vitellia has heard the news about Tito's interest in Servilia and is again boiling with jealousy. She urges Sesto to assassinate Tito. He agrees, singing one of the opera's most famous arias (Parto, parto, ma tu, ben mio with basset clarinet obbligato). Almost as soon as he leaves, Annio and the guard Publio arrive to escort Vitellia to Tito, who has now chosen her as his empress. She is torn with feelings of guilt and worry over what she has sent Sesto to do.

Sesto, meanwhile, is at the Capitol wrestling with his conscience (recitativo Oh Dei, che smania è questa), as he and his accomplices go about to burn it down. The other characters (except Tito) enter severally and react with horror to the burning Capitol. Sesto reenters and announces that he saw Tito slain, but Vitellia stops him from incriminating himself as the assassin. The others lament Tito in a slow, mournful conclusion to act one.

Act Two
The act begins with Annio telling Sesto that Emperor Tito is in fact alive and has just been seen; in the smoke and chaos, Sesto mistook another for Tito. Sesto wants to leave Rome, but Annio persuades him not to (aria Torna di Tito a lato). Soon Publio arrives to arrest Sesto, bearing the news that it was one of Sesto's co-conspirators who dressed himself in Tito's robes and was stabbed, though not mortally, by Sesto. The Senate tries Sesto as Tito waits impatiently, sure that his friend will be exonerated; Publio expresses his doubts (aria Tardi s'avvede d'un tradimento) and leaves for the Senate. Annio begs Tito to show clemency towards his friend (aria Tu fosti tradito). Publio returns and announces that Sesto has been found guilty and an anguished Tito must sign Sesto's death sentence.

He decides to send for Sesto first, attempting to obtain further details about the plot. Sesto takes all the guilt on himself and says he deserves death (rondo Deh, per questo istante solo), so Tito tells him he shall have it and sends him away. But after an extended internal struggle, Tito tears up the execution warrant for Sesto. He determines that, if the world wishes to accuse him (Tito) of anything, it should charge him with showing too much mercy, rather than with having a vengeful heart (aria Se all'impero).

Vitellia at this time is torn by guilt, but Servilia warns her that tears alone will not save Sesto (aria S'altro che lagrime). Vitellia finally decides to confess all to Tito, giving up her hopes of empire (rondo Non più di fiori with basset horn obbligato). In the amphitheatre, the condemned (including Sesto) are waiting to be thrown to the wild beasts. Tito is about to show mercy, when Vitellia offers her confession as the instigator of Sesto's plot. Although shocked, the emperor includes her in the general clemency he offers (recitativo accompagnato Ma che giorno è mai questo?). The opera concludes with all the subjects praising the extreme generosity of Tito; he then asks that the gods cut short his days, should he ever cease to care for the good of Rome.

Venue Info

Haus für Mozart - Salzburg
Location   Hofstallgasse 1

When it became clear that the ambitious plans to build a festival theater in Hellbrunn could not be realized, the idea of ​​transforming parts of the Hofstallkaserne into a theater hall came to the fore. After only four months of construction, a provisional festival theater was opened in 1925 on the terrain of the Great Winter Riding School with the Salzburg World Theater. Already in 1926 a first reconstruction phase of the insufficient Festspielhaus provisional by Clemens Holzmeister. Adaptations were made again in 1927, and now operas were also presented: Beethoven's Fidelio was performed here in 1927 as the first music theater work.
 

The later so-called "Small Festspielhaus" experienced numerous other renovation phases: 1937 was the rotation of the auditorium by 180 degrees, making a stage house cultivation was necessary. To accomplish this, Governor Franz Rehrl had his birthplace demolished in Toscaninihof. Benno von Arent redesigned the Festspielhaus in 1939 and replaced the wood paneling with a gilded plaster ceiling. The unfavorable visual and acoustic conditions required a further conversion in the years 1962/63. The Salzburg architects Hans Hofmann and Erich Engels gave the hall the form that it had until 2004.

For many years, the Salzburg Festival pursued the plan to create a "House for Mozart", which takes into account the stage works of the composer in every respect: with optimal acoustics and the best visibility from all seats. With the necessary intimacy of the room but at the same time a sufficient seating capacity had to go along. What seems like a squaring of the circle, the team of architects Holzbauer & Valentiny accomplished: The former Small Festival House was transformed in three phases from September 2003 in a "House for Mozart". The auditorium of the Kleine Festspielhaus was widened, shortened and lowered. Two new auditorium seats were created, which extend to the stage on both sides of the hall. Thus, the effect is achieved that not bare walls, but festive people frame the stage from three sides.

The foyer areas have changed considerably compared to the former Kleines Festspielhaus. High, floor-to-ceiling windows open the view to the cityscape in the main foyer - in return, the brightly lit interior of the theater in the evening looks outward. The main foyer is dominated by a 17-meter-high gilded louvre wall, through whose openings a Mozart's head created from Swarovski crystals can be seen. The terrace in front of the hall building was never open to the public since its construction in 1924. With the new building, it has now become part of the pause foyers. The arcade below was glazed and allows the auditorium to be opened from two sides instead of just one. This is the first time you can step directly from the Festspielhaus into the magnificent city landscape.

The new festival lounge on the roof, the SalzburgKulisse (made possible by the patron Gerhard Andlinger), has become a major attraction: the name itself already hints at the magnificent view that offers itself there to the old town of Salzburg. The furnishings of this lounge are made of pear-clad walls, and the tapestries in the niches are by Anton Kolig and Robin Andersen, two contemporaries of Anton Faistauer.

The Faistauer foyer (made possible by the patron Herbert Batliner) became a jewel of the new building: the famous frescoes of this room, created by the Salzburg painter Anton Faistauer in 1926, were removed after the Nazi invasion, in part wantonly destroyed, and could be reapplied until 1956. For the inauguration of the house for Mozart they were fundamentally restored and the room was also restored architecturally to its historical form.

The Holzmeister ensemble from the years 1924/37 has been preserved in its proportions on the outer façade. The visual impression of the façade is determined by the representative hall exits to the terrace designed by the sculptor Josef Zenzmaier. He created large bronze reliefs that were placed above the portals and depict scenes from Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute , The stone masks of Jakob Adlhart are now clearly visible in front of the entree of the house: under the new concrete roof with cantilevered gold and cantilevered out. Throughout the house, rough-sprayed concrete surfaces contrast with fine gold leaf and create an aesthetic tension.

From the back stage, a large iron gate opens into the Toscaninihof. The six concrete reliefs "Mask-Holding Genii" attached to the left and right of it were knocked off in 1938, but reconstructed in 1979 by their creator Jakob Adlhart. Above this, an organ is attached, which was recorded before the construction of the Great Festival Hall in the bad weather performances of Everyman.

On the occasion of the celebration of Mozart's 250th birthday in the so-called Mozart Year, the House of Mozart was ceremoniously opened on 26 July 2006 with the premiere of Le nozze di Figaro (directed by Claus Guth, conductor: Nikolaus Harnoncourt).

Important Info
Type: Opera
City: Salzburg, Austria
Starts at: 18:30
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