Lucio Silla

One of the works chosen to celebrate the bicentennial of the Teatro Real, Mozart’s little-known opera Lucio Silla in a production by Claus Guth

Mozart was not yet seventeen when Lucio Silla was created in Milan one December evening of 1772, yet we can still distinguish in this youthful composition some of the elements that established the exceptionally-gifted child musician as the greatest composer of all times. Indeed, with Lucio Silla, although a neoclassical “opera seria” in every way, it seems that Mozart was already learning to deconstruct and to free the traditional forms of musical drama from archaic conventions. We can also identify in this work an aesthetic premise that Mozart didn’t formulate until ten years later: it falls to music only to express and to reveal the psychological depths of the characters; and the poetry in the libretto should only be its “obedient daughter”.

The opera is centered around the love roman dictator Lucio Silla bears for his enemy’s daughter Giunia, who favours the exiled senator Cecilio as the object of her affection. After much twists and turns, the lovers are united in marriage and Silla renounces his crown.

Tenor Kurt Streit is Lucio Silla, and soprano Patricia Petibon and mezzo-soprano Silvia Tro Santafe play the couple of young lovers in this audacious production by Claus Guth, that manages to respect both the classical setting and the formal innovations that make the opera so interesting. Ivor Bolton conducts the Orchestra and Chorus of the Teatro Real.

Genre Opera
Recording location Teatro Real de Madrid
Recording date September 2017
Production Company Bel Air Media
Co-Production Company Teatro Real de Madrid
Co-Production Company Mezzo