Mitridate, Re di Ponto at La Monnaie

Always war and never peace.’ Do we hear a (recognisable) call to war and resistance, or is this opera primarily about the love that drives a father and his sons apart? Mozart composed Mitridate for Milan at the age of fourteen and it was with this work, in which he displays his insight into human nature and his recently acquired mastery, that he made his breakthrough in opera. The libretto generally follows the course of Racine’s tragedy, which sketches a portrait of a pathologically jealous father and leader, Mithridates, King of Pontus: ‘Rarely is his anger tempered by feelings of fondness and his own sons have no judge more severe.’