Mozart had just turned 16 in March 1771 when he was commissioned to write Lucio Silla. A year and a half later he had written all the recitatives and had travelled to Milan, where he would work on the music for the arias and begin rehearsals. His third opera was first performed at the Teatro Regio Ducal in December 1772, with a cast including some of the best voices of the moment. It was just as well: the notoriously difficult score can only be tackled by singers with a solid command of vocal technique.

The libretto, which just two years later would be used by Johann Christian Bach for his own opera, follows the typical format of 18th century European opera seria, and proposes magnanimity as the moral value which is central to the plot. Silla, the dictator of Rome, based on the historic figure Sulla, plans to use his political power to win the woman he loves, Giunia, the daughter of his enemy. However, she loves Cecilio, a senator exiled for political reasons. Silla’s initial intention gradually falls away and is replaced by compassion, leading him to make way for love, and even to give up power. The opera shows us that virtuous decisions are always the right ones.

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