Ah se il crudel periglio (Lucio Silla)

Lucio Silla was the third opera Mozart wrote for Milan and was first given at the Teatro Regio Ducale on 26 December 1772, when he was sixteen; it ran for twenty-six performances. Giovanni de Gamerra's libretto, revised by Metastasio, sets a Roman dictator who threatens and then pardons. The first night went badly — it began three hours late, and the tenor was a church singer engaged at short notice — but the writing for Anna De Amicis as Giunia is among the most demanding Mozart ever produced. It was his last opera for Italy; the commissions he expected there never came.