Wolfgang A. Mozart
Lucio Silla

Stage Director Set/Costume Designer Producer Adaptation

About

Musical Adaptation and translation of Recitatives into English. 

Chicago Premiere 

COT opts to present the recitatives in English while keeping the sung portions in the original Italian, a format I don't usually care for but which makes sense with a rarity never before presented in Chicago. "Silla" is a very long opera (the original production is said to have lasted six hours, including a ballet not by Mozart), and Mitisek has cut the score back considerably to a practical running time of 2 1/2 hours, with a single intermission. The omissions include three arias, much dramatically irrelevant recitative and a minor character whose one aria is given to Silla. –– Chicago Tribune 

Reviews

The production was staged and designed by COT general director Andreas Mitisek with his usual creativity and nods toward contemporary consciousness. The space was dominated by a huge, hammered metallic wall divided into segments by rivets, and bearing the emblem “Sic Semper Tyrannis.” ...it was a treat to welcome Lucio Silla to Chicago, and the enthusiastic audience was obviously glad that he finally made the trip.

Artistic Director Andreas Mitisek’s contemporary and always creative staging enhances rather than distracts from this twice-removed period piece. A challenge that Mitisek rises to with aplomb is how to stage this small-scale chamber opera in the vast space of the Harris Theater. He does this partly by augmenting the spare cast with members of the Apollo Chorus, who act as Silla’s guards, and even the ghostly father of Giunia, in addition to portraying the populace of Rome. And the pantomime performed during the overture introduces the plot with economy and style.

COT opts to present the recitatives in English while keeping the sung portions in the original Italian, a format I don't usually care for but which makes sense with a rarity never before presented in Chicago. "Silla" is a very long opera (the original production is said to have lasted six hours, including a ballet not by Mozart), and Mitisek has cut the score back considerably to a practical running time of 2 1/2 hours, with a single intermission. The omissions include three arias, much dramatically irrelevant recitative and a minor character whose one aria is given to Silla –– Chicago Tribune

Credits

Photos

Chicago Opera Theater 2015

Photographer: Rich Hein