Manchester Classical Music: Review of Buxton Festival's Lucio Silla

Mozart was 16 when he composed this opera, and capable of taking complete musical charge of the thing, supervising rehearsals and so on. He’d had two previous hit operas at the theatre in Milan (precursor of La Scala) already by 1772.

It’s getting quite trendy to explore his early theatre works these days, and inevitably we look for pre-echoes of the masterstrokes we know from the operas of his maturity. And some are there in Lucio Silla: the story itself, of how a nasty despot finds enlightenment and generosity of spirit in the end, has later parallels in Idomeneo and La Clemenza di Tito; the imaginative use of the orchestra to convey moods of tension, resignation, poignancy or passion as a background to the action; a scene in a graveyard that makes you think (a bit) of Don Giovanni; and several testing arias for the high voices, written as only Mozart could to bring out the best and most beautiful sounds in virtuoso singers.

For this Buxton Festival/The English Concert co-production, conducted by Laurence Cummings, the singers were well chosen and delivered excellent results – in one case, outstandingly so. Soprano Madeleine Pierard, in the hero’s role of Cecilio (two of the four men in this story sing with high voices, so they’re women in ‘trouser’) was a knock-out in her delivery of arias such as Il tenero momento and in the trio Quell' orgoglioso sdegno.

Rebecca Bottone was also on top form, as his faithful fiancée, Giunia, looking terrific and singing with beauty and sensitivity over a wide range (in, for instance, Frà I pensier più funesti di morte).

Joshua Ellicott makes the title role a study in the Roman ruler as inhuman monster … until his last-minute change of heart. He almost chewed the scenery, until a bit of it fell off prematurely … so he pulled all the flimsy stuff down anyway. Fflur Wyn (as Celia) and Karolina Plicková (as Lucio Cinna, the other trouser role) were both very fine, the former in Quando sugl'arsi campi especially, and the latter in De più superbi il core.

As a story, Lucio Silla certainly makes you wait for its best moments, as the happy ending only comes around two hours and 45 minutes in, and the first night audience found the final affirmations of sweetness and light quite amusing.

As a production (Harry Silverstein, design by Linda Buchanan), it bore the marks of shoestring budgeting, with one basic framework of a set, and costumes from the left-overs box. I was disappointed by the static, all-face-the-audience presentation of the graveyard scene and others employing the chorus. But at least it was better than a concert performance.