La clemenza di Tito is an 18th-century Italian opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 in 3 acts by the Czech composer Josef Mysliveček

Josef Myslivecek

Josef Mysliveček was a Czech composer who contributed to the formation of late eighteenth-century classicism in music...

. It was composed to a libretto

Libretto

A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...

 by the Italian poet Metastasio

Metastasio

Pietro Antonio Domenico Trapassi, better known by his pseudonym of Metastasio, was an Italian poet and librettist, considered the most important writer of opera seria libretti.-Early life:...

 that was first performed in 1734 with music of Antonio Caldara

Antonio Caldara

Antonio Caldara was an Italian Baroque composer.Caldara was born in Venice , the son of a violinist. He became a chorister at St Mark's in Venice, where he learned several instruments, probably under the instruction of Giovanni Legrenzi...

. For a performance in the 1770s, it would only be expected that a libretto of such age would be abbreviated and altered to suit contemporary operatic taste (similar to the setting of the same text by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

). The cuts and changes in the text made for the 1774 performance of Mysliveček's opera are not attributable. All of Mysliveček's operas are of the serious type in Italian language referred to as opera seria

Opera seria

Opera seria is an Italian musical term which refers to the noble and "serious" style of Italian opera that predominated in Europe from the 1710s to c. 1770...

.

Performance history

The opera was first performed at the Teatro San Benedetto

Teatro San Benedetto

The Teatro San Benedetto was a theatre in Venice, particularly prominent in the operatic life of the city in the 18th and early 19th centuries. It saw the premieres of over 140 operas, including Rossini's L'italiana in Algeri, and was the theatre of choice for the presentation of opera seria until...

 in Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

 for the carnival season of 1774, no later than 5 February. In spite of a distinguished cast, the production was one of the composer's few operatic failures, perhaps due to the pressure of composing music for two different operas during the same operatic season (he also provided music for Antigona

Antigona (Mysliveček)

Antigona is an Italian opera in three acts by the Czech composer Josef Mysliveček set to a libretto by Gaetano Roccaforte. All of Mysliveček's are of the serious type in Italian language referred to as opera seria.-Performance history:...

for Turin

Turin

Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...

 during the same carnival

Carnival

Carnaval is a festive season which occurs immediately before Lent; the main events are usually during February. Carnaval typically involves a public celebration or parade combining some elements of a circus, mask and public street party...

 operatic season). The production was also disrupted by a fire in the Teatro San Benedetto that was reported in the Venetian press.

Roles

Roles	Voice type	Premiere cast, by 5 February 1774, Teatro San Benedetto, Venice
Tito Vespasiano, emperor of Rome	tenor Tenor The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...	Giovanni Ansani
Vitellia, daughter of the emperor Vitellio	soprano Soprano A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...	Caterina Schindler
Servilia, sister of Sesto, in love with Annio	soprano	Maria Anna Schindler
Sesto, friend of Tito, in love with Vitellia	soprano castrato Castrato A castrato is a man with a singing voice equivalent to that of a soprano, mezzo-soprano, or contralto voice produced either by castration of the singer before puberty or one who, because of an endocrinological condition, never reaches sexual maturity.Castration before puberty prevents a boy's...	Pietro Benedetti
Annio, friend of Sesto, in love with Servilia	soprano castrato	Antonio Solari
Publio, prefect of the Praetorian guards	tenor	Giacomo Fantoni

Synopsis

18th-century Italian operas in serious style are almost always set in a distant or legendary past and are built around historical, pseudo-historical, or mythological characters. Metastasio preferred to craft dramas on incidents from the lives of genuine historical characters who once lived in the ancient Mediterranean world, or in Asia. This drama is based on the emperor Titus

Titus

Titus , was Roman Emperor from 79 to 81. A member of the Flavian dynasty, Titus succeeded his father Vespasian upon his death, thus becoming the first Roman Emperor to come to the throne after his own father....

 of Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

, who ruled between 79 and 81 AD., and concocts a story surrounding a fictitios daughter of the dead emperor Vitellius

Vitellius

Vitellius , was Roman Emperor for eight months, from 16 April to 22 December 69. Vitellius was acclaimed Emperor following the quick succession of the previous emperors Galba and Otho, in a year of civil war known as the Year of the Four Emperors...

, who was murdered after ruling for only a few months in the year 69 AD.

Vitellia, daughter of deposed emperor Vitellio, wants revenge against Tito and incites Tito's vacillating friend Sesto, who is in love with her, to act against him. But when she hears word that Tito has sent Berenice

Berenice of Cilicia

Berenice of Cilicia, also known as Julia Berenice and sometimes spelled Bernice , was a Jewish client queen of the Roman Empire during the second half of the 1st century. Berenice was a member of the Herodian Dynasty, who ruled the Roman province of Judaea between 39 BC and 92 AD...

, of whom she was jealous, back to Jerusalem, Vitellia tells Sesto to delay carrying out her wishes with the hope that Tito will choose her (Vitellia) as his empress.

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. Since Annio and Servilia are in love, this news is very unwelcome to both. 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 Annius.

In the meantime, Vitellia has heard the news about Tito's interest in Servilia and is again boiling with jealousy. She urges Sesto to assassinate Titus. He agrees. 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 as he and his accomplices prepare to burn it down. The other characters (except Tito) 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.

Annio tells Sesto that Emperor Tito is in fact alive and has just been seen; in the smoke and chaos, Sesto mistook someone else for Titus. 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, certain that his friend will be exonerated; but the Senate finds him guilty, and an anguished Tito must sign Sesto's death warrant.

Tito decides to send for Sesto first, attempting to obtain further details about the plot. Sesto puts all responsibility on himself and says he deserves death. Tito tells him he will have it and sends him away. But after an extended internal struggle, Tito tears up the death warrant for Sesto and determines that, if the world wishes to accuse him of anything, it can charge him with showing too much mercy rather than with having a vengeful heart.

Vitellia at this time is torn by guilt and decides to confess all to Tito, giving up her hopes of empire. In the amphitheater, the condemned (including Sesto) are waiting to be thrown to wild beasts. Tito is about to show mercy when Vitellia offers her confession as the instigator of Sesto's plot. Though shocked, the emperor includes her in the general clemency he offers. The opera concludes with all the subjects praising the extreme generosity of Titus, while he himself asks that the gods cut short his days when he ceases to care for the good of Rome. Marriages are proclaimed between Vitellia and Sesto and between Annio and Servilia.

Vocal Set Pieces

Act I, scene 2 - Aria of Vitellia, "Deh, se piacer mi vuoi"

Act I, scene 4 - Aria of Sesto, "Opprimete i contumaci"

Act I, scene 6 - Aria of Annio, "Ah, perdona al primo affetto"

Act I, scene 7 - Aria of Servilia, "Amo te solo"

Act I, scene 9 - Aria of Tito, "Ah, se fosse intorno al trono"

Act I, scene 11 - Duet of Vitellia and Sesto, "Parto, ma tu, ben mio"

Act II, scene 1 - Aria of Publio, "Sta lontano ogni cimento"

Act II, scene 1 - Aria of Servilia, "Almen, se non poss'io"

Act II, scene 2 - Aria of Vitellia, "Come potesti, oh Dio"

Act II, scene 7 - Aria of Tito, "Tu infedel non hai difese"

Act II, scene 8 - Aria of Annio, "Ch'io parto reo, lo vedi"

Act II, scene 10 - Aria of Sesto, "Se mai senti spirarti sul volto"

Act II, scene 11 - Aria of Vitellia, "Tremo fra' dubbi miei"

Act III, scene 3 - Aria of Sesto, "Non chiedo perdono" [a non-Metastasian text]

Act III, scene 5 - Aria of Tito, "Se all'impero, amici dei"

Act III, scene 8 - Aria of Vitellia, "Se vado, oh Dio, a tui" [a non-Mestastasian text]