Lucio Silla at Barcelona Opera House Gran Teatre Del Liceu

The blossoming of Mozart´s talent

By the tender age of sixteen Mozart had already mastered the art of opera seria and gives a show of precocious artistic maturity in this work devoted to honour, betrayal and power.

Lucio Silla (Milan, 1772), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart´s second opera seria, was composed when he was just sixteen. It has an exceptionally fine, powerfully orchestrated score and poses a daunting challenge to the singers. The action is set in Rome in the second century AD. The protagonist is the dictator Lucio Silla, who wants to marry Giunia, the daughter of his political enemy Mario. Giunia, however, is in love with the senator Cecilio, who has been banished by Silla. Celia, Silla´s sister, and the patrician Lucio Cinna, Cecilio´s friend and protector, with whom she is in love, also play key roles in the action. A conspiracy against the tyrant fails but in the end he displays magnanimity and lauds generosity and clemency in terms similar to those used in Corneille´s play Cinna.

Opera seria en three acts. Libretto by Giovanni de Gamerra with revisions by Pietro Metastasio. First performed at the Teatre Regio Ducal in Milan on 26 December 1772. First performance at the Gran Teatre del Liceu on 30 April 1987.