Tuesday 24 January 2023

Flavio, Orfeo and more: Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival announces its 2023 programme

Leonardo Vinci: Alessandro nell'Indie - Jake Arditti, Franco Fagioli & Mayan Licht at Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival in 2022 (Photo Falk von Traubenberg)
Leonardo Vinci: Alessandro nell'Indie - Jake Arditti, Franco Fagioli & Mayan Licht at Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival in 2022 (Photo Falk von Traubenberg)

Last September we finally made it to Bayreuth for Max Emanuel Cencic's Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival which takes place in the 18th century splendour of the Margravial Opera House. Last year, the focus of the festival was the first modern revival of Leonardo Vinci's Alessandro nell'Indie in a spectacular production that recreated the premiere's use of male singers for both male and female roles [see my review].

The programme for the 2023 Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival has now been announced and the festival, which takes place from 7 to 17 September 2023 will, for the first time, have two staged operas. There will be a new production of Handel's Flavio, Re de' Longobardi, directed by Max Emanuel Cencic with Julia Lezhneva, Max Emanuel Cencic, Yuriy Mynenko, Sonja Runje, Rémy Brès-Feuillet and Sreten Manojlovic. Benjamin Bayl will direct from the harpsichord with Concerto Köln, the resident orchestra at the festival. Flavio dates from 1723 and was the composers fourth full-length opera for the Royal Academy of Music. Unusually concise for the period, the opera is an interesting mix of tragedy and comedy.

Alongside this will be a production of Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, originally seen at the Athens Megaron in 2017 as part of the celebrations for the 450th anniversary of Monteverdi's birth. The production combines Monteverdi with new music, transcriptions and live electronics by Panos Iliopoulos, all a conception of music director Markellos Chryssicos. Directed by Thanos Papakonstantinou, the production features Rolando Villazón as Orfeo.

Recitals include counter-tenor Valer Sabadus in arias by Carl Heinrich Graun with {oh!} Orkiestra, soprano Véronique Gens in Passion with Ensemble Les Surprises with music by Lully, Henry Desmarest, André Cardinal Destouches, Pascal Collasse and François Rebel, counter-tenor Bruno de Sá explores arias from the Neapolitan school with nuovo barocco and tenor Daniel Behle presents arias from the second half of the 18th century that have remained unheard since the time of their composition 

Full details from the festival website.

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