Is it possible to be merciful with fascists? In Robert Carsen’s reading of Mozart’s “La Clemenza di Tito” the answer must be a reverberant “No”—otherwise, the moment one turns their back, they will not miss the opportunity to stab it. Robert Carsen often enjoys updating opera plots, making them reflections of current politics—often achieving some whimsical results and thought-provoking answers. It is his way of uncovering the political messages the past has to offer the present.
However, “La Clemenza” is a hard pill to swallow. Composed during the aftermath of the French revolution, the idea of “clemency” or “mercy” for those who might have killed King Leopold II’s cousins on the guillotine is a radical idea—though a proper message for the decaying days of absolutism. Carsen reformulates the problem by asking the question: shall we show mercy on the January 6 th rioters? And, he even expands it by making his Vitellia the personification of Italy’s Giorgia Meloni.
The question then becomes: can we be merciful—or, perhaps, simply enter into dialogue, with the current right-wing movement? To Carsen, such conversation is impossible. In a surprising plot-twist, Tito’s clemency leads Meloni/Vitellia to commit a second coup, this time, successfully. As Maya Angelou once said: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.
” And, perhaps, a bit of Cobra Kai’s motto: “No Mercy.” On the surface, there is little wrong wi.