Ah, se il crudel periglio from Lucio Silla K135 (1772)

Although Mozart was only just sixteen when he composed Lucio Silla, and although he was to complete ten more operas in the next 19 years, he never wrote an aria more demanding of vocal virtuosity than Ah, se il crudel periglio. “Wolfgang has put passages in it which are new and quite especially and astonishingly difficult,” the composer’s father reported from Milan, adding that Anna de Amicis-Buonsolazzi, for whom the part of Giunia was written, “sings it to amaze you.” More amazingly perhaps, “We are on the best of terms with her.”

Ah, se il crudel periglio comes from the second act of the opera - which, like all Mozart’s opere serie from Mitridate to La Clemenza di Tito, is about a ruler’s act of clemency - and expresses Giunia’s fears for the life of her betrothed Cecilio, who has returned to Rome in defiance of his banishment by the dicator Silla. It would be idle to pretend that every vocal embellishment, every roulade, every trill, every prolonged run, every change of colour and register, every cadenza is justified by the dramatic situation. It is true, however, that the most extravagant coloratura is reserved for the fearful lines “Tutto mi fa spavento/Tutto gelar mi fa” while the less emotive words that make up the middle section (beginning “Se per si cara vita”) receive comparatively little attention. The vocal ornamentation in the da capo is even more spectacular than it was in the first place.

The lead soprano’s amazing singing of Ah, se il crudel periglio no doubt had something to do with the fact that Lucia Silla registered the major triumph of 24 repeat performances at the Regio Ducal Teatro in Milan in 1772-3, just as the immense difficulty of one of its major arias must have something to do with the fact that it had to wait more than 150 years for its first revival.