About the work
La clemenza di Tito is a three-act opera seria by Baldassare Galuppi on a libretto by Pietro Metastasio. It premiered on 26 December 1759 at the Teatro Regio in Turin. Metastasio's text, written in 1734 for Vienna, tells of the clemency of the Roman emperor Titus and was one of the most successful opera librettos of the eighteenth century, set some fifty times before Mozart's late version of 1791.
Plot
Vitellia, daughter of the deposed emperor Vitellius, feels spurned by Titus and incites Sesto, who loves her, to join a conspiracy against him. When the plot fails and Sesto is exposed as a conspirator, the court and the people press for his punishment. Titus, however, pardons Sesto and his fellow conspirators; Vitellia too confesses her part, and the emperor grants clemency to all.
Cultural significance
For a revival in Turin that same winter, the court poet Vittorio Cigna added four extra arias to the score, three of them for Vitellia – a reminder of how freely operas of the period were reshaped around individual singers.