Steffen Lösel, associate professor in the practice of systematic theology, has released a new book. Theological Anthropology in Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito: Sin, Grace, and Conversion (Routledge, 2022) considers the messages that Catholics in late-18th century Prague might have perceived in Mozart’s opera La clemenza di Tito (The Clemency of Titus).
The book explores two theses in particular: first, that Catholics might have heard the opera’s advocacy of enlightened absolutism as a celebration of a distinctly Catholic understanding of political governance; and second, that they might have found in the opera a metaphor for the relationship between a gracious God and humanity caught up in sin.
Sitting at the intersection of theology and the arts, Lösel’s book contributes to a better understanding of the theological implications of Mozart’s operatic work.