Mozart: Overture of the opera La clemenza di Tito ⎟ Julien Salemkour & S...

The overture of the Mozart opera La clemenza di Tito (K. 621) opens the Mozart Celebration concert, which was held in honor of the composer in 2006 at the Berlin Staatsoper unter den Linden. The Staatskapelle Berlin performed under the direction of Julien Salemkour. La clemenza di Tito is a festive opera composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791) in 1791 on the occasion of the coronation of Emperor Leopold II as King of Bohemia. Accordingly, the premiere of “Titus” took place at the festivities for the coronation act on 6 September 1791 in Prague. In the last year of his life (he died in Vienna on December 5, 1791) Mozart was mainly busy working on the Singspiel Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute), which he unceremoniously interrupted when he was commissioned to compose Titus. La clemenza di Tito is unusual in that it is an opera seria, i.e. a "serious opera" with a heroic theme, in which the libretto was set. Mozart had written serious operas mainly in the early years of his career as a composer, but he then turned to the more cheerful type of opera, the opera buffa, and lent musical flare to this genre with works such as The Marriage of Figaro or Così van tutte. The fact that, with Titus, he returned to heroic-serious material can probably only be attributed to financial worries.