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'La clemenza di Tito' -
reviewed by
ROBERT ANDERSON

'... Sylvain Cambreling in sensitive command ...'

Mozart: La Clemenza di Tito. © 2006 Opus Arte

'Equality' in the French Revolution led everyone impartially to the guillotine. Leopold II, to celebrate whose coronation in Prague Mozart produced La clemenza in something of a scramble (he hadn't time to write the secco recitatives himself), did not live to see his sister Marie Antoinette's head join that of countless others in their fraternal fate. Indeed he initially welcomed the Revolution, when it seemed Louis XVI might easily survive with powers only slightly clipped. As alarm bells began ringing ever louder, he tried for a European coalition to check the results of liberty gone mad. Not a chance.

Sylvain Cambreling conducting the overture to 'La Clemenza di Tito' at the Palais Garnier in Paris, May/June 2005
Sylvain Cambreling conducting the overture to 'La Clemenza di Tito' at the Palais Garnier in Paris, May/June 2005

 

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Copyright © 16 March 2006 Robert Anderson, London UK

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