Lucio Silla

We saw Lucio Silla this last Saturday night at The Santa Fe Opera.

It reminded me in some respects of Agrippina last summer - set in ancient Rome, heavy use of harpischord as the only accompaniment to many arias, generous use of castrato singers, and (this i only know from the program), heavy use of coloratura. That's when they do fancy stuff with their voices. And both were written in Baroque times. Although strictly speaking Baroque music transitioned to "classical" around 1750 - Lucio Silla was first performed in the 1770's.

However, I have to say I enjoyed Agrippina more than Lucio Silla, but then again, Agrippina was my favorite opera last season. The music in Lucio Silla was fantastic - it is Mozart, after all, and it always amazes me at how "Mozarty" Mozart always is. As someone who is fairly clueless about music I can't tell you what it is that distinguishes Mozart, except to say something like, "he seems to like strings."

However, the duke of Milan, who commisioned the opera, didn't choose the best librettist in the world. The plot was even thinner than that of Agrippina, or at least, less comic. In a nutshell: boy is banished from girl's town, boy gets reunited girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl. The dictator of Rome, Lucio Silla, is totallly infatuated with Giunia, the young babe. But she mourns for her boyfriend Cecilio, who was banished by Silla. Turns out he is alive, and comes back. They reunite and are happy. However, Cecilio gets thrown into jail again and is supposed to die. He's a revolutionary after all. But then in the final scene, Silla decides to let them marry, and gives up the throne and becomes a regular citizen. And approves of his sister's marriage to this guy Cinna, who seconds before finally admitted to Silla that he is not his friend, but wishes he were dead.

The costumes were easily my favorite part of the opera. The women wore these HUGE bustles - big wire frames that normally would just accentuate the hips and make them look bigger - but in this case, they extended two-four feet out from their hips. The women were much wider (in their hips) then they were tall, easily. The men had these wider hips too, but in their case, it was actually just their clothing that stuck out - the hems of their robes or coats. they stuck out to the sides like pippy longstocking's braids. The main characters were all dressed up in this greatly exaggerated Baroque style, while the chorus and the four (male) dancers were dressed in modern suits and ties.

The protaganist, Cecilio, was played by a woman. The role was originally written for a castrato, which they don't do anymore. That is good. The role of Cinna was sung by a male soprano. The costumes definitely helped Cecilio look male - after all, to be female in this opera you needed hugely wide bustles. There was a funny scene where the four dancers dressed Giunia who was to appear before the emperor. She started off the scene in her slip, then the dancers dressed her against her will, since of course she would rather die than have anything to do with Silla. They brought out this big wire contraption that they slid over her head and down onto her waist. Then laid the dress over it like a tablecloth. Then wrapped a bustier thing around her torso, placed a blond wig on her head, and swiped some makeup on her. It was quite amusing, and provided a balance for the end, when the Emperor removed his huge outfit, wireframe included, and donned a simple black suit, to become just another Josephus.

I also loved the use of video in a modern performance art way. Silla was obsessed with Giunia, who by the way, everytime she saw him, told him how much she hated him and wished he would die. But that made him just even more obsessed with her. Anyway, in one scene, a huge video clip of her was projected onto the scenery. It was a zoom of her face, first of her looking downward with her long hair over her face, then swooshing her head up and to the side, flipping her hair away and smiling. Then it repeated, over and over. Later it was reused in a scene with Cecilio, who is also madly in love with her.

I thought that the staging was quite inventive and fun - something you need to do with such a thin plot. I have to say though, i needed a lot of coffee to keep me going through this one. I almost nodded off in the second act. I find it hard, when slightly sleepy, to focus on a single brightly lit character against a pitch black background. It makes me want to close my eyes.

Another fun part was reading about the initial staging of Lucio Silla, Mozart was but a young teenager at the time. He was commissioned to do the opera with his father by the Duke of Milan. About a week before opening, the character playing Lucio Silla dropped out, and the replacement wasn't so hot. He was a church tenor with practically no stage experience. Mozart cut his arias for the character in half, down from four to two. Then opening night the actor proved even worse than expected. He was so exaggerated in his movements that it looked like he was going to box Celia's ears in one scene and made the audience laugh out loud. This in turn upset the prima donna, who was off her game the rest of the night. This was further compounded by another actor requesting lots of applause everytime he came on stage to help him counter his stagefright. Mozart and the other producers had to spend the next day placating the upset prima donna. I like to imagine an acne-ridden teenage boy trying to calm down a large, highly preened and perfumed, theatrical prima donna. Oh yeah, and then it wasn't performed again for over 120 years.

Lucio Silla Performance Dates at the Santa Fe Opera this season: July 16, 20, 29; August 4, 10