The Music of Mozart’s Last Months: La Clemenza di Tito at Emmanuel, Die Zauberflöte at Salzburg under Furtwängler, 1951, and Beecham’s Requiem from Pristine, by Michael Miller
The arrival of the Queen of the Night. Stage set by Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781–1841) for an 1815 production
Mozart – La Clemenza di Tito
Saturday, April 14, 2012 – 8 pm
Pre-Concert Talk at 7 pm by John Harbison
Emmanuel Church, Boston
The Orchestra and Chorus of Emmanuel Music
Ryan Turner, conductor
Tito – William Hite, tenor
Vitellia – Deborah van Renterghem, soprano
Sesto – Krista River, mezzo-soprano
Annio – Pamela Dellal, mezzo-soprano
Servilia – Susan Consoli, soprano
Publio – Aaron Engebreth, baritone
Susan Larson, narrator
The primary occasion for this writing was Emmanuel Music’s fine performance of Mozart’s last opera, La Clemenza di Tito, under Music Director Ryan Turner. However, two extraordinary recordings of works Mozart composed during those busy final months of his life have appeared, as downloads from Pristine Classics, and they are not only magnificent in themselves, but they provide an enlightening context for this somewhat elusive opera seria. These recordings are of the legendary 1951 Salzburg performance of Die Zauberflöte under Wilhelm Furtwängler in the spectacularly improved sound we have come to expect from Andrew Rose, and a magnificent studio recording of the Requiem under Sir Thomas Beecham from 1954-56.

