sing the traditional structures of Neapolitan opera as a basis, in Lucio Silla Mozart gave life to a style that was very advanced in both forms and ontents: the choruses, the great number accompanied recitatives, the arias that were not necessarily scored with the ”da capo” structure represent the opera’s main novelties alongside wholly unusual, bold harmonic and melodic features.

The use of various forms of solo aria - and the consequent abandonment of the single ”da capo” model - confirms the composer’s wish to find the structures best suited to the expression of various different emotional states. Alongside the characters of Neapolitan theatre, accentuated compared to the models, we thus find traces of an impassioned spirit, seeking to reach beyond conventional patterns. This comes about not only through decidedly massive use of the orchestra, which accompanies and illustrates the action with a very marked poetic sense and does not limit itself to redoubling the song, but indeed

inserts new melodies and denotes independent treatment of the single timbres, but also through a wholly personal representation of emotions overstepping the situations offered by the libretto as it aims for almost an passionate tragic nature. With this his third ”dramma per musica” Mozart successfully concludes his activity in Italian theatres; he does not achieve any concrete openings for his profession, but does draw artistic profit from the experiments he carries out here, which will be exploited in later titles in his catalogue.