ASCANIO IN ALBA

the Opéra de Lausanne continues to honor Mozart’s early works. At the age of 15, he debuted Ascanio in Alba at the Teatro Regio Ducale in Milan in 1771: a serenade, in his words, a veritable theatrical celebration! Illustrating the imperial wedding of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria to Princess Maria Beatrice d’Este, his pastoral opera in two acts was already a feast of exhilarating brilliance and virtuosity. This libretto by the great poet Giuseppe Parini is highly political and moral: Venus/the Empress promises her son Ascanio/Ferdinand the ravishing nymph Silvia/Marie-Béatrice as his wife, but first he must test her fidelity. Choirs of nymphs and shepherds praise the triumph of virtue and the greatness of marriage. It was so successful that it eclipsed Ruggiero, the opera performed a day earlier, even though the latter was written by Johann Adolph Hasse, a regular at Habsburg festivals. It must be said that Venus’s vocal leaps already prefigured those of the future Queen of the Night…