Lisandro Silla

Renowned in his day as a virtuoso keyboard player, Bernardo Pasquini (1637-1710) was the most important Italian composer of keyboard music between Frescobaldi and Domenico Scarlatti. In that capacity his output has output has been surveyed by Brilliant Classics with authoritative collections of his sonatas for harpsichord (94286) and for two organs (94347). However, Pasquini also composed more than 70 cantatas – most of them for one and two voices with continuo accompaniment, of the concise and dramatic kind written by the young Handel after he arrived in Rome in 1706.

Denys Darlow conducts a fresh stylish performance with his London Handel Festival forces, recorded live at the Royal College of Music. Textures are clean and rhythms light and resilient, with James Bowman in the title-role leading a consistently reliable team.

Mozart was not yet seventeen when Lucio Silla was created in Milan one December evening of 1772, yet we can still identify 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. The opera is centered around the love that Roman dictator Lucio Silla bears for his enemy's daughter Giunia, who favours the exiled senator Cecilio. After many twists and turns, the lovers are united in marriage and Silla renounces his crown. Tenor Kurt Streit is Lucio Silla, and soprano Patricia Petibon is Giunia for the last time, after having gained international recognition thanks to her numerous performances in this role, while mezzo-soprano Silvia Tro Santafe is the ardent Cecilio. In this monumental production, Claus Guth finds a way 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.

No Handel opera is as enigmatic as Silla. His fourth London opera, it was composed in 1713 to a libretto by Giacomo Rossi, also the librettist of the composer s first great London triumph Rinaldo (1711). And that is just about the extent of any certainty on the subject. It might have been premiered in 1713 in London in a private concert at the Queen s Theatre, but even this remains unconfirmed. This is one of Handel s few historical operas, being concerned with Plutarch s account of the latter part of the life of Lucius Cornelius Sulla, who after taking Rome became a tyrannical despot who murders his opponents, before suddenly retiring to his country estate to enjoy his leisure.

This dramatic opera is associated with one of Mozart’s sojourns in Milan. The Austrian genius was sixteen when he composed this jewel of bel canto dedicated to the general and dictator of Ancient Rome: Lucio Silla made its debut on 26 December 1772, when Mozart was almost seventeen. It was the third opera that he had staged in the Regio Ducal Theatre, Milano. The staging by Marshall Pynkoski, specialized in eighteenth-century operas with particular insights into Baroque dance, drama and gestures, pays ‘attention to detail, making use of scenes and eighteenth-century impeccably decorated costumes designed by a specialist of the genre in film, Antoine Fontaine’ (delteatro.it). ‘The female cast is remarkable’ (La Repubblica).