<i>Theological Anthropology in Mozart's</i> La clemenza di Tito: <i>Sin, Grace, and Conversion</i> by SteffenLösel, Routledge Studies in Theology, Imagination and the Arts, edited by JeremyBegbie and TrevorHart (London: Routledge, 2023), xv + 205 pp.

In the world of crossover discourses, a Venn diagram mapping the intersection between classical opera and systematic theology would likely generate a quite miniscule center region—the true definition of a research niche. At first glance, then, it might seem that Steffen Lösel's new book on a late Mozart opera would have little relevance beyond the handful of scholars who have devoted their energies to both these fields of inquiry. Such an assumption, however, would be unwarranted; one need not have an aficionado's dedication to opera, nor even a highly developed taste for classical music or theater, to learn much from this deeply researched work of scholarship. Before I offer an argument for the book's wider relevance, allow me a quick summary: Lösel is interested in the ways that some of the major themes of Christian theology are given voice in Mozart's next-to-last opera, La clemenza di Tito (The Clemency of Titus). In particular, the concepts of grace, sin, repentance, and redemption are instantiated in the opera's three main characters: Titus, the emperor of Rome, against whom others conspire but who eventually pardons them; Vitellia, the daughter of the former emperor who seeks revenge on Titus; and Sextus, whose obsessive desire for Vitellia tempts him to carry out her wishes, which includes stoking a rebellion and attempting to assassinate the emperor (but whose deeper moral commitments lead him to repentance). The book's interest is not in the historical accuracy of any of these portrayals (Titus, for example, was not very clement; before becoming emperor, he brutally prosecuted Rome's quashing of the Jewish rebellion in 66 CE). Nor does Lösel attempt to plumb the depths of Mozart's own theological perspective (or lack thereof)—a subject for which the sources are scant and hence the necessary degree of speculation quite immense. But neither is Lösel content merely to offer his own judgments on the theological relevance of certain of the opera's themes, whether linguistic or musical. Instead, he undertakes a kind of rhetorical criticism: he attempts to examine the effect that Mozart's opera might have had on its original eighteenth-century audience. This requires a great deal of unearthing of the history of that era, citing sources in five languages and documenting the period through copious notes and extensive bibliography (which together account for over one-third of the book's 200 pages). And this historical spadework contributes to the book's relevance. By avoiding questions of “authorial intent” and focusing on the work's original audience, Lösel nudges us to move beyond speculative accounts of the theological “meaning” of a particular work of art. I have done a good deal of that kind of speculation myself, and although I enjoy it and find it useful (particularly when addressing a broad audience), my interpretations of various novels, plays, short stories, and films are distinctly my own, and the best that I can do is to persuade others that my perspectives make sense and have theological value. Lösel takes an additional step: he argues that a certain kind of theologically literate cleric, who would likely have been in the audience at the opera's premiere in Prague, would have seen things in a particular way. Some of this effort is still speculative, of course, but it is speculation buttressed by thorough historical investigations into the political theology of the Habsburg empire, the (ever shrinking) influence of the monasteries in Bohemia, and the actual responses offered by critics who witnessed the opera's early performances. While this historical framing does not make a particular theological interpretation any more “true” or “accurate,” it does ground it in the concrete realities of the work's origins. For me, at least, this makes the book's theological claims all the more persuasive. One of those claims is about grace. Titus is a pagan ruler, and in his world, “clemency” is the closest that he is likely to come to understanding, experiencing, or dispensing grace. The early critics of this opera (and its current scholars) seem divided as to whether Mozart was intentionally subverting a Christian concept by recasting it in pagan terms, or the opposite—i.e., showing the Christian depths of the pagan perspective. Fortunately, readers need not render a judgment on this (after all, irresolvable) argument; Lösel convincingly demonstrates that to many in Mozart's original audiences, the theological elements would have come through loud and clear, nearly displacing the story's pagan provenance and its typical mise-en-scène. Titus's invocation of the importance of friendship resonates with Jesus’ discourse in the Gospel of John, as well as with Thomas Aquinas's Christian magnification of Aristotle's understanding of friendship (86-87). Similarly, the character's frequent reference to the face echoes a range of biblical tropes—from the face of God, to the transfiguration, to Paul's reference to a time when we shall see face to face (96-98). And Titus's reckoning with the relationship between justice and mercy clearly embraces a particularly Christian resolution to this longstanding debate (as well as current controversies about the moral status of criminal punishment); it also echoes discussions in Christian eschatology about the relationship between God's justice and God's mercy. Lösel finds a parallel set of theological resonances in the characters of Sextus and Vitellia. Particularly in the second act, when Sextus repents of his slavish devotion to his own object of desire, much of the surrounding language in the libretto is liturgically rich and deeply connected to personal piety. Another character, Annio, encourages Titus's inclination to clemency through what Lösel describes as “a form of prayer. Words common in liturgical contexts dominate: tradito, morte, core, sperar, Signor, il nostro dolore…. [and] what a Catholic audience could have recognized as several important theological motives: betrayal, pain and suffering, hope, a loving heart” (135). Sextus's act of repentance is similarly awash in liturgical language and allusions to biblical narratives—from the penitential Psalms, to the disciples’ desertion of Jesus, to Peter's weeping contrition (140-41). Again, these are not merely Lösel's own observations about the resonances among the Bible, the liturgy, and the opera's libretto. Rather, through his regular invocations of the theological background of the opera's original audience in their particular historical time and location, his analysis seems all the more credible. The character of Vitellia embodies a series of vices—self-love, pride, desire for domination, vainglory, a soul “curved in on itself”—all of which would have been known to the original audience as an account of sin, particularly as it is elucidated and illustrated by St. Augustine in De civitate Dei. Vitellia also demands a kind of slavish, unwavering devotion from Sextus, thereby underscoring her own libido dominandi. Here again, Lösel's analysis is replete with references to parallels between the text (in this case, Augustine's) and the opera's libretto, as well as its possible allusion to the debates (contemporary with the opera) between baroque Catholicism's demand for blind faith and the Catholic Enlightenment's demotion of such an attitude as mere superstition. The latter point is, as Lösel notes, taken up in Mozart's next (and last) opera, Die Zauberflöte, “which in so many ways is a sibling to La clemenza di Tito” (163). But in Act Two, Vitellia also eventually repents, after slowly experiencing the pangs of conscience (with a range of biblical allusions) and eventually demonstrating something like genuine contrition—two elements that would have been recognized by the audience as “indispensable preconditions for true Christian confession and repentance” (169). Linguistic connections to well-known elements of confession and contrition in the liturgy, along with Mozart's instrumentation and tonal choices, lead to Lösel's conclusion that this section of the opera “offers the audience a view of Vitellia's inner emotional world” (174). That world experiences a journey from a desire for vengeance to a hard-won repentance. Lösel's analysis of the contemporary intellectual scene at the time of the opera's première is focused on historical and ecclesiastical matters, and it would have been beyond the scope of his project to engage in very much socio-cultural analysis. But for this reader, at least, the absence of such analysis was particularly noticeable in the chapter on Vitellia, where very little is made of the obvious fact that, of the three major characters, the one who evinces the most vicious character and who is the slowest to repent is female. This is not Mozart's doing, of course, nor that of his librettist Caterino Mazzolà, nor even the earlier libretto by Pietro Metastasio (though Lösel has much to say about the interesting ways that Mazzolà and Mozart altered the direction of the earlier libretto). These writers were drawing on French tragedies by Racine and Corneille, who in turn drew on Suetonius and Seneca; Vitellia was the antagonist from the narrative's beginnings. Still, in keeping with Lösel's focus on “what a Catholic audience might have made of Mozart's opera,” he might have given more time and space to that era's theological and anthropological perspectives on women. I suspect that Vitellia would have fit all too easily into the original audience's heavily gendered understanding of the ultimate source of sin, the power of temptation, and the reluctant and conscience-panged process of repentance. In fact, this appears the character's primary purpose: “With her confession accomplished, Vitellia recedes into the background” (176). Given the historical era, this is hardly a surprise. But again, critical analysis of gender is not the project of this book, and I do not want to make too much of its absence; this is the work of a true scholar, from whom we all have much to learn. As Lösel studies the opera, he moves deftly among concrete theological claims, historical contextualization, and quotations from the libretto (always referencing the original Italian, while also translating it into English). He also points out the ways that certain elements in Mozart's music tend to evoke certain kinds of reactions in the listener. Despite his scrupulous insistence that he is neither a musician nor a musicologist, Lösel has studied a mountain of scholarly work in these fields, and he brings it to bear on his argument in ways that can usually be understood by a nonspecialist. (Admittedly, however, he sometimes gets a bit technical here—with reference to, e.g., an aria's progression from subdominant to dominant to tonal [104].) In any case, he helps his readers understand the relevance of some of Mozart's musical choices, noting (for example) that certain emotions have traditionally been associated with certain major and minor keys. Through these and many other observations, Lösel helps us understand that many features of the opera's music, no less than its words, would likely have had certain rhetorical effects on its original audience—effects that can often magnify the theological resonances of the libretto. A final “value added” element of Lösel's work is its unstated encouragement for other theologians to take up this kind of labor. Systematic theology is well known for exhibiting a certain kind of “churn”—covering some of the same territory again and again as it tries to define the wideness of God's mercy or the depth of human brokenness. In my view, some of the best theological work is that which takes other products of human creativity as its subject matter; it can thereby demonstrate that other work in the humanities, the sciences, and especially the arts can provide the material cause through which theological concepts can be better understood, more deeply felt, and more fully embodied. Lösel makes it clear that his ultimate interest is in the opera's theological ramifications; and in this respect, he makes space for other theologians to venture outside their narrowly constructed areas of expertise and to recognize that every work of creation—whether made by human beings or by God—can be theologically revelatory. Lösel begins his book with the story of his own early fascination with opera, and how he gradually allowed this “hobby” to become a passion and then a focus of his research—and a vehicle for theological analysis. May we all find ways to foster those interests that fuel our own deep gladness, and thereby to shape the kinds of theological reflection that the world needs most.