The title of La Clemenza di Tito says it all: the emperor of Rome, although betrayed by his friend who has attempted to kill him for the love of a woman, will choose to pardon the conspirators. Themes of imperial mercy were standard fare for operas, especially when written on royal commission.

This is precisely the case with this work, composed in just eighteen days by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart for Prague in 1791, on the occasion of the coronation of Leopold II, alongside The Magic Flute and the Requiem. Despite a libretto by the poet Metastasio that had been set many times by other composers, and a musical form – opera seria – already considered outdated, Mozart’s subtle and delicate music lays bare the truth of the characters’ emotions.

In Willy Decker’s stylised staging, a marble block at the centre of the stage gradually reveals the emperor’s hidden face: that of a solitary, wounded man.