La Clemenza di Tito K. 621

La Clemenza di Tito K. 621

Mozart’s seven great operas, his brilliant contribution to musical theater and world culture, are unequalled in their depth of human characterization and musical expression. Here we have the original score of one of the seven great operas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791): La clemenza di Tito. It is an opera seria – a serious opera – that premiered in Prague on September 6th, 1791. Set in Rome in the year 79, the plot revolves around Vitellia, daughter of the deposed Emperor Vitellio, who wants revenge against the Emperor Vespasian. The opera was commissioned to mark the coronation of Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II (1747–92) as King of Bohemia. Mozart was already in the last year of his life at the time of its composition and is a contemporary work of Mozart’s famous Magic Flute. Parts of the manuscript were believed to be lost or destroyed in the course of World War II, but were rediscovered in the course of the years 1979 and 1980. Thus, the well-preserved original manuscript is presented here in its entirety.