Juilliard Opera Presents Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito for the First Time in More Than 50 Years

NEW YORK, April 10, 2024––Juilliard Opera presents Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito on April 24, 26, and 28 in the Peter Jay Sharp Theater at Juilliard. One of Mozart’s less-frequently mounted operas, La clemenza di Tito was last presented at Juilliard in 1971.

Stephen Wadsworth, James S. Marcus Faculty Fellow and Head of Operatic Studies at Juilliard, directs this production, which is set in 1791, the year it premiered. It is sung in the original Italian with a libretto by Caterino Mazzolà after Metastasio. Wadsworth has directed La clemenza di Tito in Houston, Toronto, Glasgow, and New York as well as at the Edinburgh Festival. Nimrod David Pfeffer (MM ’16, orchestral conducting) returns to conduct the Juilliard Orchestra and a full cast from the school’s Ellen and James S. Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts.

"La clemenza di Tito, often mistaken for an old-fashioned opera seria, is Mozart's most concise opera and a complex inquiry into human relationships,” Stephen Wadsworth says. “It depicts a leader with vision and moral courage, willing to make sacrifices for those he governs. Full of democratic ideas, it’s an urgent call for the utmost care, decency, and transparency in governance––lest anarchy explode and despoil as it was doing in neighboring France amidst the French Revolution. And Mozart, only three months from death and unwell, articulates this personal and political change with all-seeing, unflinching honesty.

“I learned as a child that Mozart and his characters could restore and save lives," Wadsworth continues. “To share with students what I learned then from Tito, Sesto, Vitellia, Annio, Servilia, and Publio is a great blessing."

"It’s a huge pleasure for me to return to my dear alma mater to conduct one of Mozart’s greatest operas and a personal favorite for me, La clemenza di Tito,” Nimrod David Pfeffer says. “While this opera is rarely performed in comparison with the other great Mozart operas, it is just as miraculous as the three Da Ponte operas and The Magic Flute, which are more frequently performed. Working with the incredible Juilliard singers and orchestra is pure joy for me. I was a student here not long ago, and getting to know the world’s upcoming generation of musicians in a place that I call home is a truly remarkable experience.”

There will be three performances: Wednesday, April 24 at 7:30pm; Friday, April 26 at 7:30pm; and Sunday, April 28 at 2 pm. The April 28 performance will be livestreamed to the public at juilliard.edu/calendar via Juilliard LIVE, the school’s free digital platform, which provides access to performance livestreams and programming from the music, dance, drama, and preparatory divisions. 

Please refer to juilliard.edu/calendar for the most up-to-date livestream schedule and performance details. 
Tickets are $45 (Members: $22.50) and available at juilliard.edu or the Juilliard box office.

Program Details
Juilliard Opera Presents Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito
Wednesday, April 24 | 7:30pm
Friday, April 26 | 7:30pm
Sunday, April 28 | 2pm* 
Juilliard’s Peter Jay Sharp Theater, 60 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023

Juilliard Orchestra
Nimrod David Pfeffer, Conductor
Stephen Wadsworth, Director
Sung in Italian with English supertitles

Creative Team and Cast
Scenic Designer: Charlie Corcoran 
Costume Designer: Sara Jean Tosetti 
Lighting Designer: Kate Ashton
Wig Designer: Tom Watson

*The Sunday, April 28 performance will be livestreamed at juilliard.edu/calendar. Juilliard LIVE is available on a web browser or on a TV, tablet, or smartphone through the Apple iOS, Apple TV, Roku, and Amazon Fire TV apps; Android and AndroidTV are coming soon. 

Juilliard’s Ellen and James S. Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts was established in 2010 by the generous support of Ellen and James S. Marcus. 

This production is partially sponsored by Sarah Billinghurst Solomon.

Juilliard’s lead digital sponsor is Bloomberg Philanthropies.

Juilliard’s livestream technology is made possible in part by a gift in honor of President Emeritus Joseph W. Polisi, building on his legacy of broadening Juilliard’s global reach.

                                
About the Artists

Nimrod David Pfeffer
Praised for his insightful interpretations of classical as well as contemporary music, Nimrod David Pfeffer returns to Juilliard after leading Così fan Tutte in 2019. He recently performed with orchestras including the San Francisco Symphony, Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, Jerusalem Symphony, Hungarian National Orchestra, Stuttgart Philharmonic, and Nuremberg Symphony, and led opera productions at the Metropolitan Opera, Komische Oper Berlin, Palau des Arts Reina Sofía in Valencia, Polish National Opera, and Israeli Opera. In 2022, Pfeffer made his debut with the Metropolitan Opera with Le nozze di Figaro, and he is set to return for The Magic Flute next season. In 2016, he became the music director of the Lyric Opera Company of Guatemala. A Juilliard alum, Pfeffer earned his master’s in orchestral conducting as a student of Alan Gilbert.

Stephen Wadsworth
Stephen Wadsworth has directed opera for more than 40 years––at La Scala, Vienna State Opera, Covent Garden, LA Opera, San Francisco Opera, and the Metropolitan Opera, among many other companies here and abroad––notably including Seattle Opera, his home theater throughout the Speight Jenkins years, where Wadsworth created his famous production of Wagner’s Ring cycle. He has directed plays on and off Broadway and in regional theaters across the country, including a string of indelible productions of classic plays by Aeschylus, Shakespeare, Molière, Marivaux, Goldoni, Shaw, Wilde and Coward. His groundbreaking translations of French plays are published by Smith and Kraus as Marivaux: Three Plays and Molière: Don Juan, and he is also the author of several operas, including A Quiet Place, which he wrote with Leonard Bernstein. He is the James S. Marcus Faculty Fellow at Juilliard, where he runs Vocal Arts’ Artist Diploma program and has directed Hippolyte et Aricie, Katya Kabanova, Mozart’s three Da Ponte operas, Handel’s Ariodante and Teseo, Falstaff, and The Bartered Bride.  He has directed La clemenza di Tito in Houston, Toronto, Glasgow, and New York as well as at the Edinburgh Festival. He was made a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for services to French literature.

About the Ellen and James S. Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts
One of America’s most prestigious programs for educating singers, Juilliard’s Ellen and James S. Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts offers young artists programs tailored to their talents and needs. From bachelor and master of music degrees to an advanced Artist Diploma in Opera Studies, Juilliard provides frequent performance opportunities featuring singers in its own recital halls, on Lincoln Center’s stages, and around New York City. Juilliard Opera has presented numerous premieres of new operas as well as works from the standard repertoire.

Juilliard graduates can be heard in opera houses and concert halls throughout the world; alumni artists include such well-known performers as Simon Estes, Renée Fleming, Leontyne Price, Risë Stevens, Tatiana Troyanos, and Shirley Verrett. Recent alumni include Paul Appleby, Julia Bullock, Sasha Cooke, Isabel Leonard, Erin Morley, and Susanna Phillips.

About The Juilliard School
Founded in 1905, The Juilliard School is a world leader in performing arts education. The school’s mission is to provide the highest caliber of artistic education for gifted musicians, dancers, and actors, composers, choreographers, and playwrights from around the world so that they may achieve their fullest potential as artists, leaders, and global citizens. Juilliard is led by Damian Woetzel, seventh president of the school, who has prioritized affordability and access to the highest level of artistic education while championing Juilliard’s tradition of excellence. 

Located at Lincoln Center in New York City, Juilliard offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in dance, drama (acting and playwriting), and music (classical, jazz, historical performance, and vocal arts). More than 800 artists from 42 states and 50 countries and regions are enrolled in Juilliard’s College Division, where they appear in more than 700 annual performances in the school’s five theaters; at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully and David Geffen halls and at Carnegie Hall; as well as at other venues around New York City, the U.S., and the world. The continuum of learning at Juilliard also includes nearly 400 students from elementary through high school enrolled in the Preparatory Division in its Pre-College and Music Advancement Program (MAP); MAP serves students from diverse backgrounds often underrepresented in the classical music field. More than 1,200 students are enrolled in Juilliard Extension, the flagship continuing education program taught both in person and remotely by a dedicated faculty of performers, creators, and scholars. Beyond its New York campus, Juilliard is defining new directions in performing arts education for a range of learners and enthusiasts through a global K-12 educational curricula and preparatory and graduate studies at The Tianjin Juilliard School in China.
 

juilliard.edu @juilliardschool

CONTACTS:
Allegra Thoresen
[email protected]

Photo by: Maria Baranova, courtesy Juilliard 

# # #