COC Presents Mozart's Final Opera La clemenza di Tito in February

The Canadian Opera Company presents a production described as "modern music theatre you mustn't miss" (Chicago Tribune) this winter season when it performs Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's last opera, La clemenza di Tito, directed by Christopher Alden. Conducting some of opera's most sublime music is the dynamic young maestro Daniel Cohen in his company debut, leading an acclaimed ensemble cast that features internationally renowned Canadian tenor Michael Schade and Metropolitan Opera regular American mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard. La clemenza di Tito is sung in Italian with English SURTITLES™ and was last performed by the COC in 1991. It runs for nine performances at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts on February 3, 6*, 7, 9, 11, 13, 16, 19 and 22, 2013.

American director Christopher Alden returns to the COC on the heels of the successful premiere of his production of Die Fledermaus for the opera company this past fall. His production of La clemenza di Tito premiered in 2009 at Chicago Opera Theater, where it was received as "an excellent introduction for the operatic novice and a gorgeously executed classic for the connoisseur" (SteadStyleChicago.com), "smart, good-looking, and in Alden's staging, often humorous" (Chicago Reader) and "boldly liberated from the stilted conventions of opera seria" (Chicago Tribune).

Written in 1791 to celebrate the coronation of Emperor Leopold II as King of Bohemia, La clemenza di Tito's story of the attempted assassination of the Emperor Tito and his forgiveness of those who betrayed him was meant to reflect a quality that the populace might have hoped for in their new king. Mozart spent his entire life pleasing and placating the kings, emperors, and archbishops who commissioned his operas, constantly striving to impress them. In bringing La clemenza di Tito to the stage, Alden approaches the work as the composer's personal statement on his own dealings with powerful men. Alden's staging explores the real human emotions at the opera's core and focuses on the relationship between the characters, especially how others relate to Tito, offering a psychologically penetrating depiction of people negotiating the dangerous corridors of power.

La clemenza di Tito is considered one of the composer's late masterpieces, and an undeniable example of Mozart's musical genius. The delicate, sublime beauty of the orchestral writing delivers the kind of emotional immediacy that only great art possesses, and the complex characters are depicted with both realism and powerful drama.

In the role of Tito is Michael Schade, returning to the COC, following an acclaimed role debut performance as Eisenstein in last fall's Die Fledermaus. One of the leading Mozart tenors on the stage today, Schade's portrayal of Tito has won him acclaim from Salzburg to Washington, praised for his "apparently effortless command of Mozartian style" (The Telegraph), and "mesmerizing the audience" (Opera Britannia) with an "unflagging intensity and musical intelligence" (Washington Post). Making her COC debut as Sesto, Tito's closest friend, is highly acclaimed American mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard. A regular at the Metropolitan Opera and described as "fresh, effervescent, and lovely" (New York Times) and "a stage animal with charisma written all over her" (Financial Times), Leonard's performance with the COC marks her role debut as Sesto. American soprano Keri Alkema, last with the COC in 2012's The Tales of Hoffmann, returns to treat audiences to her "appealing brew of dark and creamy colors" (New York Times) in a role debut as the vengeful Vitellia, the instigator of the attempted assassination of Tito.