Lucio Silla at Komische Oper Berlin

Mozart - May at the Komische Oper Berlin. After Il re pastore last season, Lucio Silla represents another early work in a series of concertante performances of Mozart operas. The composer, aged just 16 at the time this piece was written, has already discovered how to pack this opera seria with magnificent arias, which are in no way inferior to those of his later masterpieces!

The work focuses on the cruel dictator Lucio Silla, whose reign of terror heralded the ultimate decline of the Roman Empire. He relentlessly disposes of his enemies, subsequently attempting to possess not only their property but also their wives. Such tyranny prompts rebellion, but all efforts to dispose of Silla come to nothing, since the potential assassins are also fighting with each other. Not until the dictator embraces "Clemenza" does the spiral of violence come to an end. By exercising mercy and renouncing revenge or excessive force, Lucio Silla actually ends up as the embodiment of the humanist enlightenment, claiming: "I am no longer a dictator. I'm the same as you all!"

A rare musical experience, with Olga Pudova, acknowledged worldwide as the Queen of the Night, as Silla’s fiancee Giunia. Presented under the musical direction of the young Estonian Kapellmeister Kristiina Poska.