Lucius Sulla by Mozart, Sv 11 jūl 2021, No (2021/2021), Režisēja Cathy Dunn, Diriģents Adriano Spampanato, Prairie Lakes Theater, Des Plaines, United States

In 79 BC, Lucio Silla has achieved autocratic power in Rome through violence and intimidation and is backed by a supportive Senate. His fiercest enemy, the noble Senator Cecilio, has been exiled, but is believed dead thanks to Silla’s ability to shape public narrative; Silla covets Giunia, Cecilio’s betrothed, for himself. Silla attempts to follow his sister Celia’s advice to win Giunia over with kindness, but the threat of noncompliance lingers when he tries to woo her. Giunia, whose father was also killed in Silla’s ascent to power, rejects the autocrat, choosing allegiance to her father and Cecilio. This rejection provides Silla with another excuse to choose tyranny: he declares that she will die. Meanwhile, Cecilio has secretly returned to Rome and reunites with Giunia by her father’s tomb. When Cecilio’s presence is discovered, Silla again chooses tyranny, declaring that Cecilio will be put to death. Giunia, Celia, and Cinna – Cecilio’s friend and the object of Celia’s affections – seek a solution to Silla’s tyrannical behavior and Cecilio’s fate, effectively debating the value and efficacy of vengeance, persuasion, and honor under oppression. Will Silla continue his bloody and tyrannical reign or will justice win the day? The lieto fine, like many in 18th century opera, can be hard for today’s audiences to accept and is sometimes subverted by staging and production choices. Despite these contemporary interpretive tendencies, this production preserves the opera’s original intent, celebrating honor and bravery in the face of autocracy as well as the power of love to persevere and overcome tyranny and cruelty. Composed when Mozart was just 16 with librettist Giovanni de Gamerra, Lucio Silla is the third Mozart opera commissioned by Milan. The three-act opera seria largely follows the genre’s conventions but lightly pushes musical bounds, blurring standard delineations with several accompanied recitatives and less common aria structures.