I do not want to start
too many hares running, but I suggest
that if a newcomer to opera listened
to La Traviata and then Il
Trovatore, one after another, he
or she would quickly identify the composer
as one, no matter the different moods
and key register. If the same listener
did the same with Die Zauberflöte
and La Clemenza di Tito I
doubt that the listener would identify
the works as being by the same composer.
What each pair has in common is contemporaneous
composition. Of course the Mozart works
are of completely different genres.
Die Zauberflöte is
a singspiel with spoken dialogue composed
for performance in a lower class district
of Vienna. Tito on the other
hand belongs in the rather static opera
seria genre with secco recitatives.
It was composed for the Coronation Day
of Emperor Leopold in Prague. Mozart
had seemingly put the rather static
opera seria form aside after
the composition of Idomeneo in
1781.
The reason that Mozart
reverted to opera seria for this
prestigious commission is explained
by the background politics of the Vienna
Court. He was certainly not flavour
of the month in Court circles, not least
with Emperor Leopold and his wife. Mozart
must have been mightily surprised to
be approached by the impresario Guardasoni
and to receive the commission. There
had been much prevarication as to whether
there would be a Coronation Opera and
the impresario only signed the contract
on 8 July 1791. The agreement specified
a new opera but recognising the shortage
of time it allowed for a newly-composed
work based on Metastasio’s libretto
of nearly sixty years earlier. Any modification
was to be carried out by Mazzola, the
Court poet who had replaced Da Ponte.
Guardasoni approached Antonio Salieri
to write the work. Salieri was Principal
Kapellmeister at the Imperial Court
in Vienna. However, Salieri had to cover
the work of his favourite pupil, Joseph
Weigl, at the Court Theatre as well
as his own duties and he refused, pleading
pressure of work. Mozart accepted the
commission in late July or early August
and worked with Mazzola whose efforts
the composer described as having converted
Tito into ‘a real opera’ (Mozart’s
Last Year, H.C. Robbins Landon,
Thames and Hudson, 1988).
Having some of the
completed libretto, but knowing little
of the singers, Mozart set out on the
four-day coach journey to Prague on
25 August. He was accompanied by his
wife and by pupil Süssmayr and
when they started out it was a mere
twelve days before the scheduled premiere.
It has been suggested that Mozart composed
the opera in his head during that journey
and transcribed it for the copyists
on his arrival. Although he had that
skill, the real story is more complex.
Analysis of the paper types used in
the manuscript and other sketches indicates
that some numbers were composed before
Mozart knew of the commission. These
could go back to 1789 when Mozart met
Guardasoni in Prague after the success
of Don Giovanni and hoped for
a further commission to write an opera
on the subject of Tito. In the days
between arrival in Prague and the Coronation
Day, Mozart worked feverishly, and through
illness, to complete the opera. It is
suggested that he delegated the composition
of the secco recitatives to Süssmayr.
The overture was only finished the night
before the first performance.
The opera was presented
in the National Theatre on the evening
of the Coronation Day with entry being
free. The Empress was not impressed
and the work played to a poorly attended
theatre for the rest of its run, except
for the last night when it was rapturously
received. For the following forty years
Tito was ranked alongside Don
Giovanni as one of Mozart’s finest
works, after which it was neglected.
This 1967 recording
was specifically aimed at filling a
gap in the recorded catalogue and provided
a first opportunity for many to hear
the work. In his autobiographical series
of articles, collated by his daughters
after his death, Erik Smith, the producer
of this recording, describes the difficulties
of casting the opera. These were compounded
by the work being too rarely performed
to have given any choice of singers
experienced in the roles (Mostly
Mozart, Articles, memoirs, rarities
and surprises, Erik Smith, Porcellini
Publications, 2005).
Tito had been
staged at La Scala in 1966 for Giulietta
Simionato’s farewell to the operatic
stage. Around the same time there were
performances in Cologne under Istvan
Kertész, the conductor here.
These featured Lucia Popp as Servillia.
Despite that experience Kertész
is an unsympathetic conductor. Much
of the playing lacks what we now expect
of Mozart operatic performances. His
conducting is flaccid and lumpy and
lacks drive and vitality. The eschewing
of ornamentation does not help, with
the endings of the arias seemingly cut
off prematurely. The solo singing is
distinctly variable. Teresa Berganza
sings beautifully as Sesto without being
dramatically convincing. Her Parto,
parto (CD 1 tr. 15) sounds more
like a concert-piece than a central
pillar of the plot. Her voice is however
sufficiently differentiated from the
other ‘trousers’ role of Annio which
here is sung with good legato by the
young Brigitte Fassbaender. She duets
nicely with the Servillia of Lucia Popp
in their tuneful duet in act 1 (CD 1
tr. 3). On the whole I was disappointed
with Popp’s singing, which often sounds
thin and fluttery. The wicked Vitellia
is sung by Maria Casula, unknown before
this recording and rarely heard on record
after. The role is distinctly challenging.
It is rather like a Mozartian Lady Macbeth
but with the need to show some feminine
vulnerability. This is particularly
so in Vitellia’s great act 2 aria, with
basset-horn obbligato, Non piu fiori
(CD 2 tr. 17). Here Vitellia reveals
the truth of the plot against Tito and
Sesto’s innocence. Maria Casula is well
worth hearing (CD 2 tr. 17). This was
one of the pieces we know that Mozart
composed well before he knew anything
of the Coronation Day commission. It
had been sung by one of his tenor friends
and the pitch is lower than the rest
of Vitellia’s music whose range extends
from G below middle C to top D. The
Sardinian Maria Casula was a mezzo who
had shown her range in singing Rossini’s
Rosina and Cenerentola. She really puts
her all into the part and is thoroughly
convincing if not matching some more
famous recorded successors. On the male
side Werner Krenn as Tito is a little
husky and has none of the Mozartian
elegance of Burrows. Tugomir Franc who
sang in Decca’s recording of Mozart’s
Requiem and as the Friar in Solti’s
Don Carlo is ill-suited to the
demands of Publio.
This Decca recording
certainly kick-started interest in Tito
and acted as a catalyst for stage
productions and other recordings. When
Erik Smith left Decca to be head of
A and R at Philips he scheduled a recording
under Colin Davis. Davis had conducted
it to acclaim in Anthony Besch’s 1974
Covent Garden production with its elegant
period Roman sets and costumes. I caught
the production in 1983 where the singing
was outstanding and Diana Montague’s
shapely legs more than compensated for
Stuart Burrows’ rather matronly deportment
in a toga. The recording features Janet
Baker as Vitellia, Stuart Burrows as
Titus as well as Lucia Popp and Frederica
von Stade. It far surpasses the achievement
on the Decca reviewed here. DG added
a version conducted by Karl Böhm
with Julia Varady and Peter Schreier.
Since then recordings have burgeoned
with performances under Muti (EMI),
Gardiner (DG), Harnoncourt (Teldec)
and Hogwood (Oiseau Lyre). The period
instrument bands certainly give vitality
to the work. Most of these recordings
include the Süssmayr recitatives
- abbreviated on this recording. Performances
on DVD include the 1991 Glyndebourne
production (Arthaus). There’s also Ursel
and Karl-Ernst Hermann’s idiosyncratic
production that started life at the
Monnaie in Brussels in the early 1980s
and is caught, newly refurbished, at
Paris’s Palais Garnier in 2005 (Opus
Arte). Its great strength is the interpretation
and singing of the delectable Susan
Graham, the non pareil Sesto
de nos jours. Whatever your views
on the production her performance is
not to be missed.
This recording is of
interest for its seminal importance
in the re-emergence of La Clemenza
di Tito on stage and record. As
such it is well worth the mid-price
cost which includes a libretto and English
translation.
Robert J Farr
see also the
new
recording conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras
Chorus and Orchestra of the Vienna State Opera/Istvan
Kertész 
