Premiere of La clemenza di Tito

Background. In 1791, the last year of his life, Mozart was already well advanced in writing Die Zauberflöte by July when he was asked to compose an opera seria. The commission came from the impresario Domenico Guardasoni, who lived in Prague and had been charged by the Estates of Bohemia with providing a new work to celebrate the coronation of Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor, as King of Bohemia.

Political Context. The coronation had been planned by the Estates in order to ratify a political agreement between Leopold and the nobility of Bohemia, rescinding efforts of Leopold's brother Joseph II to free the serfs of Bohemia and increase the tax burden of aristocratic landholders. No opera of Mozart was more clearly pressed into the service of a political agenda than La clemenza di Tito, promoting the reactionary policies of an aristocratic elite. No evidence exists to evaluate Mozart's attitude toward this, or whether he was aware of the internal political conflicts raging in Bohemia in 1791.

The Work. La clemenza di Tito (The Clemency of Titus), K. 621, is a two-act dramma per musica (now called opera seria) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, composed to an existing Italian libretto by Pietro Metastasio as modified by Caterino Mazzolà. Mozart completed the work in the midst of composing Die Zauberflöte, his last opera. There would be three further settings after 1791.