By Shirley Apthorp [Financial Times, 7 February 2006]

The glamour of ruling is at best superficial. There are few more lonely jobs, and none where you can be less sure of your friends. Mozart makes all this painfully clear in La clemenza di Tito, his bittersweet final opera seria. The crowds praise the emperor's clemency, but you can hear Titus's rage and melancholy in every bar.