Silla (opera)

Silla (full title Lucio Cornelio Silla, HWV 10) is an opera seria (referred to as a dramma per musica) in three acts by George Frideric Handel. The Italian-language libretto was by Giacomo Rossi. The story concerns the Roman general Lucius Cornelius Sulla (138–78 BC) as recounted by Plutarch.

The opera appears to have been a pièce d'occasion, which may have been performed only once. The music was recycled in Handel's later opera Amadigi di Gaula.

The first performance might have been on 2 June 1713. A dedication from the librettist, Rossi, to the French ambassador, the Duc d'Aumont, appears with that date in a printed copy of the libretto. There may have been a private performance at the Queen's Theatre, London. However according to the Amadeus Almanac, the performance took place at Burlington House. The opera has been performed in modern times, for instance at the London Handel Festival in 2000 and at the Handel Festival, Halle in 2015.

The military leader Silla returns victorious to Rome, having subdued both rebellious foreign populations and his own personal enemy, Mario (the historical Gaius Marius) and his army. Silla passes through a specially constructed triumphal arch as trumpets sound and the populace acclaim him. When Silla announces that he is proclaiming himself dictator and sole law-giver for Rome, however, both his wife Metella and the tribune Lepido are appalled.

Flavia, Lepido's wife, tells him of bad dreams she has been having about dangers to Rome but Lepido dismisses this as superstition.

Celia, daughter of a high-ranking statesman who also opposed Silla's enemy Mario, is in love with the senator Claudio and he with her but she cannot bring herself to accept him as he is a supporter of Mario.

Claudio confronts Silla and accuses him of destroying Roman liberty. Silla is furious and refuses to hear it, but, left alone, Claudio vows to continue to struggle against tyranny.

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