THE pianist Alfred Brendel famously said of Mozart that "his death is the hardest of all to forgive". He was referring to the composer's untimely – and to some extent self-induced – demise in 1791 at the tender age of 35.
Who knows what further works of genius Mozart would have produced had he lived to collect his pension? It's the age-old question: what if?
In a sense, that's the question Edinburgh Studio Opera is posing with its new and potentially controversi
al production of Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito, which opens tonight at Edinburgh University's St Cecilia's Hall.
In an approach that updates the action from the Roman Empire of Titus's reign to a 1930s fascist dictatorship (I wonder which one), this go-ahead student-run opera company has decided to challenge the inconsistencies of Mozart's hurriedly-composed opera seria with a solution that attempts to reveal its undoubted strengths and mask its alleged weaknesses: director Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones (a classics lecturer at the university and experienced theatre director) has, in an act of artistic bravado, expunged all the recitatives and replaced them with his own updated dialogue.
But before Morningside's Mozart-lovers choke on their scones at the thought of such arrogance and blasphemy, it's worth recalling the circumstances in which this opera was composed, which led to it being cobbled together in a ridiculous hurry – and not all of it by Mozart himself.
In what turned out to be the last year of his short life, Mozart was already busy, working on The Magic Flute with the vivacious Viennese theatrical impresario Emanuel Schikaneder. He was also contemplating how to approach Requiem, following its bizarre commissioning – by the mysterious visitor in the night on behalf of an anonymous patron, who was subsequently revealed as Count Walsegg.
Personally Mozart was in a mess – hard-up, and to some extent frustrated by a lack of official recognition from the ruling Austrian establishment. So when the call came in July 1791 to write an opera for the Prague coronation of the new Austrian emperor, Leopold II – Mozart had been overlooked for Leopold's previous coronations in Frankfurt and Hungary, and was still second choice to Salieri for the Prague commission – he jumped at the chance. Money and kudos were part and parcel of the deal.
But the task was a daunting one. La Clemenza di Tito – Mozart had no choice in the setting of Metastasio's subject matter – was to be ready for performance by the end of August. In the true spirit of showbiz the show went on, and was a success, but not without the composer adopting the Hollywood studio solution of meeting impossible deadlines by drafting in ghost writers for the parts he had no time to do himself.
The story goes that Mozart set off by coach for Prague accompanied by his faithful pupil and amanuensis Süssmayer (the man who completed the unfinished Requiem), to whom he entrusted, in transit, the job of writing the connecting recitatives, while Mozart perfected the ensembles that dominate the opera. Süssmayer, as always, did a craftsmanlike job, but the joints are noticeable, the flow uneven, the element of consistent genius glaringly absent.
As the conductor Jane Glover argues in her recent excellent book on Mozart: "Like the never-finished C Minor Mass, and indeed the Requiem that awaited him back in Vienna, La Clemenza di Tito is greatly uplifting and thought- provoking, and affords intense musical satisfaction. But it is also a glorious torso lacking limbs."
Which is why Edinburgh Studio Opera (ESO) has gone for broke and ditched Süssmayer's musical prosthetics. Making it more like the dialogue-driven Magic Flute perhaps? "Yes, we've made it an opera seria with a Singspiel combo," says Llewellyn-Jones.
Major elements in his justification are the sheer quality of the core music – more ensembles than Mozart would normally have prescribed, perhaps as a safeguard against solo singers he was unfamiliar with – and the fact that ESO has a long-standing policy of presenting its bold productions in English.
For its four-night run, ESO will use the highly acclaimed English translation recently created by Amanda Holden (the writer and academic, not the actress) for English National Opera.
"It has cost us a lot of money, but it is very good and devoid of clichés," says Llewellyn-Jones, whose update sticks to Metastasio's serious-minded exploration of "the nature of rulership and absolute power".
It's a bold experiment nonetheless, to be performed intimately in the round in the delightful 18th-century acoustics of St Cecilia's Hall under the musical direction of Michael Bawtree, and with a cast that includes students from both Edinburgh University and Glasgow's RSAMD.
And it's an experiment that promises to focus specific attention on the undiluted genius of Mozart in an opera he didn't quite have time to perfect, but which, who knows, he might just conceivably have revisited and revised had he lived a little longer.
• Edinburgh Studio Opera's production of Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito opens tonight at St Cecilia's Hall, Cowgate, Edinburgh, and runs until Tuesday 10 March. For tickets, call 07792 270269 or visit
opera.eusa.ed.ac.ukThe full article contains 869 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
