Blank canvas | 7 February 2013

I approach any production of Mozart’s last opera, La clemenza di Tito, in a state of acute trepidation: it’s not pleasant sitting bored through nearly three hours of one of your favourite two or three composers, one whom you regard as perhaps the most astonishing artist who ever lived. But that is how La clemenza di Tito has nearly always affected me — first, before it was revived in theatres, on a dodgy old Nixa recording, then, fairly often since, in various opera houses, its having now become a repertoire piece, something which was inconceivable only 40 years ago.

Still, despite its canonisation, its defenders — its admirers still, significantly, regard themselves in that way — tend to strike one or another defiant or uneasy note. Joachim Kaiser, doyen of music critics, in his useful book Who’s Who in Mozart’s Operas goes in for blatant one-upmanship: ‘A far greater appreciation of music is required to enjoy aesthetically the subtle distinctions among the figures in La clemenza than to love Figaro…Even to suspect how much sublime and craftsmanlike purity and sincerity went into La clemenza requires great sensitivity.