Murder, manipulation & mercy

At first glance, everything seems clear: here a mild ruler, there a traitor and murderer. But Mozart's La clemenza di Tito raises many questions. For example: The relationship between power and leniency, friendship and loyalty - and what drives people to do what they do. The premiere singers Hanna-Elisabeth Müller, Emily D'Angelo and Katleho Mokhoabane talked about these and other aspects of Mozart's late opera during rehearsals.

Let's start with the music. If you dare to give a definition: How do you recognize Mozart's music? What is "Mozartian"?

HEM: When you hear a clear line that is very simple and immediately gives you goose bumps. That is Mozart.

EDA: Mozart's music has an elusive quality that is instantly recognizable and deeply revered by virtually everyone who hears it. Whether you spend a lifetime with it or hear it for the first time, you immediately recognize its uniqueness.

Katleho Mokhoabane, you are still a very young singer, and there is no getting around the question of role models when it comes to Mozart tenors. Were there any formative voices?

KM: Peter Schreier, Michael Schade, Daniel Behle, Bogdan Volkov. And several others as well.

Is a voice actually a gift? Or is singing just hard work?

KM: It is a gift. First and foremost. But this gift alone is not enough in our business. That's why you have to constantly work on your voice. No matter what stage of your career you're at, it takes continuous work. In my case, I'm trying not only to sing better, but also to acquire a larger repertoire. And above all, to treat my voice in such a way that it stays healthy. It's so sad to hear that there are singers who had a five-year phase where everything was great and then it went downhill. Very often because they didn't take good care of their instrument.

Mozart's Clemenza di Tito is a line-up of very different characters. Vitellia tends to be in the darker corner. What drives her to incite Sesto, who is in love with her, to murder Emperor Tito? Wounded pride? The will to power?

HEM: Ambition. Greed for power. A great greed for everything. She wants to be loved, she wants people to look up to her. And she wants to have the power and be able to determine everything. Which she does, because she manipulates events all the time and uses the others like puppets. Until the intrigue fails in the end and she falls, falls very low. And I don't know if she has enough personal strength to get back on her feet.

But is it actually possible to make a character like Vitellia look good? Like this: Yes, but ...?

HEM: If you really want to, she has attributes that you might even wish for in a different context and that many people might also lack. This ambition, the planning, the thinking through of all eventualities, the strategy to reach a goal. And this constant staying on the ball. These are things that can also be seen as positive - if they were used differently.

Vitellia is evil. Where does Sesto stand on the scale of evil?

EDA: Vitellia, but also Sesto, do terrible things. But ultimately, I don't see it as my job as a singer to judge - whatever my personal opinion may be. We all try to show the characters as real and true to life as possible. And there are people like Vitellia and Sesto: people who make appalling mistakes and commit terrible crimes. This is the world we live in. We show it - the dark, but also the many shades of gray that exist between light and dark.

But is Vitellia as dangerous as Hagen or Iago?

HEM: She wants to have the emperor killed by his best friend, her lover. It doesn't get much more intriguing and deep than that. The fact that the emperor survives has nothing to do with her. But of course I try to give the role something human. Because there has to be a person on stage who we could all know, but who has made mistakes and more mistakes.

One of your colleagues once said that the Emperor Tito you portrayed is a grown-up Tamino.

KM: I agree with that. He is definitely an older version of Tamino, who is still very young and naive and has a corresponding perspective on life. Tito, on the other hand, has already experienced a lot and the conflicts he has to go through are still more than challenging for him. The role is correspondingly difficult for young singers - precisely because Tito has had experiences that I have not yet had. The character requires nuances, life experience - but that's also part of the job, being able to be someone completely different.

Do you see Tito as a forgiving person or as a politician whose Clemenza is also a political act?

KM: Both. Tito not only feels deep compassion for the people around him, but is also a ruler. So there has to be a bit of politics in the character. But first and foremost, I see him as a person who feels deeply. And because he cares about those close to him, he is doubly affected by Sesto's betrayal. The fact that he is capable of forgiveness says something about his humanistic attitude.

Sesto is deeply in love with Vitellia: What kind of love is this? Too much of it? A false love? Toxic?

EDA: Since this love leads to murder, it can only be described as toxic. There is definitely something wrong with these people ..

Is there something wrong with Sesto because he allows himself to be instrumentalized in this way?

EDA: Yes: He is a human being. There are countless ways of interpreting and understanding the complex figures that Mozart and Metastasio created. That's the beauty of a new production, that we can freely interpret a constellation. What exactly is wrong with Sesto and Vitellia? It could be so many things ... The only thing that is certain is that they are both involved - what springs from this relationship is darkness and ugliness. There is nothing good in this love.

HEM: When I look at this relationship from the outside, I ask myself: what does Sesto actually want from Vitellia? This is obviously a sick personality.

EDA: It's a great gift to be able to embody characters like Sesto - or to experience works like Clemenza at all. Because all the characters are enormously complex, multi-layered. And that's exactly what we dream of as musicians and performers.

"When I look at this relationship from the outside, I ask myself: what does Sesto actually want from Vitellia? He obviously has a sick personality."

Will Tito behave differently in the future? Are friendship and trust still possible?

KM: I do think that these values will still exist in his life. But will it be easy? Certainly not. Tito will undoubtedly be much more careful with relationships in his environment in future. But in the main, he will remain true to Clemenza. He is kind, and that shows that he is first and foremost a human being and not a politician. A person who has to go through a lot.

Le nozze di Figaro is also a political work, but it is even more personal. What about Clemenza? Is it a political work? Or is it just a foil on which private matters are negotiated?

EDA: Mozart had an incredible talent for reducing large dimensions to the essentials. He takes the macroscopic and puts it under the microscope. The genius of Mozart is that he can concentrate on something big and bring it down to the intimate. The relationships serve as a metaphor for the dynamic processes in culture.

HEM: The levels are mixed, because the work is personal and political. We have an emperor who is under immense pressure because he has to pass judgment on his best friend, who is trying to kill him. Everyone would expect him to at least send him into exile or even have him killed. This is a political issue, mixed with an incredibly strong and deep emotional bond. And he has a choice: he stays alone or he surrounds himself with people who have betrayed him. Which is better? The safety and solitude - or a community that you can't necessarily trust? Many of us have been faced with such a decision: I don't want to give up on a person because I'm used to being close to them, even if all the red alarms are already flashing.

"Personally, I like to stick to what's in the score, because we know that Mozart was brilliant enough to know exactly what he wanted. So: lightness."

Katleho Mokhoabane, you were in the opera studio at the State Opera and are returning to the house in a leading role after a year's absence. What do you feel? Is it home? Or is it a different world now?

KM: First and foremost, I feel at home: I spent two years here and really appreciate my colleagues as well as the State Opera. But of course it's also a bit new. Because Tito goes far beyond what I last sang on this stage. I am no longer the very young singer I was back then in the studio.

I began our conversation with Mozart's music and I will end with it. Centuries of tradition and performance practice lie behind us. How do young people approach Mozart today? How should Mozart sound?

KM: As easily as possible. Personally, I like to stick to what's in the score, because we know that Mozart was brilliant enough to know exactly what he wanted. So: lightness. But that's easier said than done. We singers have to work hard to make sure that the end result sounds light.