ABSTRACT
The many opera-seria arias that Mozart wrote in his youth present us with a curious paradox. In one sense they seem conventional, with their formal ritornello structures and orderly disposition of texts. Yet the same crystalline regularity that suggests convention often accompanies a surface that is rhetorically highly animated and differentiated. My aim here is to suggest that the varied textures and motives Mozart wields in them lend unusual emphasis to the musical gestures of the seria stage.
