Bayreuth goes to Venice: Cavalli's Pompeo Magno the centrepiece of the 2025 Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival

Handel's Flavio at Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival in 2023
Rémy Brès-Feuillet (in bath), Yuriy Mynenko - (Photo: Clemens Manser)

The Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival, based at the 18th century Margravial Opera House in Bayreuth, will be going to Venice for the 2025 festival. Running from 4 to 14 September 2025, next year's festival will feature a new production of Cavalli's 1666 opera Pompeo Magno. The festival's artistic director, countertenor Max Emanuel Cenic will direct and sing the title role with Sophie Junker as Giulia, and Valer Sabadus as Servilius. In the pit will be Cappella Mediterranea under its music director, Leonardo García Alarcón.

Cavalli's Pompeo Magno premiered in Venice at the Teatro San Salvatore in 1666. The libretto is by Niccolo Minato and the work was dedicated to Maria Mancini Colonna, wife of Lorenzo, Duke of Colonna, who was the niece of Cardinal Mazarin. The work came late in Cavalli's career and was in fact his final opera to be premiered in Venice. The plot concerns the political intrigue surrounding Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (108 BC – 48), consul, then member of the triumvirate with Caesar and Crassus. The opera was revived in Bologna in 1692, and there were performances in the UK in the 1970s which made it onto disc conducted by Dennis Stevens, with Paul Esswood in the title role. [further details].

Also at the 2025 festival, there will be recitals from soprano Julia Lezhneva and countertenor Franco Fagioli [see image below] with the Orchestre de l’Opéra Royal under Stefan Plewniak, countertenor Carlo Vistoli with Cappella Mediterranea and Leonardo García Alarcón, and countertenor Rémy Bres-Feuillet (see image above) with with I Porporini and Gerd Amelung. The the Orchestre de l’Opéra Royal under Andrés Gabetta return for a second concert with mezzo-soprano, Marina Viotti. Mezzo-soprano Malena Ernman will explore the theme of nature in music with L’Arpeggiata under Christina Pluhar.

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

Previous operatic rarities at Bayreuth have included an extravagantly theatrical production Handel's Flavio in 2023 [see my review] and Vinci’s Alessandro nell’Indie performed with an all male cast in 2022 [see my review]

Full details of the 2025 festival from the Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival's website.

Tragédie lyrique given with great sympathy and style: Passion from Véronique Gens with Les Surprises, Louis-Noel Bestion de Camboulas at Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival

Passion - Véronique Gens, Les Surprises, Louis-Noel Bestion de Camboulas - Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival (Photo: bayreuth.media)

Passion: Lully, Henry Desmarest, André Cardinal Destouches, Rebel, Charpentier; Véronique Gens, Les Surprises,  Louis-Noel Bestion de Camboulas; Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival at Ordenskirche St Georgen

Immense style and mesmerising performances in the wonderful selection of music from tragédies lyriques by Lully and his contemporaries

Véronique Gens recorded her programme Passion with Louis-Noel Bestion de Camboulas and Les Surprises in 2021. It is an exploration of music written for two singers who inspired Lully, Mademoiselle Saint Christophe and Marie Le Rochois, focussing on music by Lully and his younger contemporaries.

Véronique Gens, Louis-Noel Bestion de Camboulas and Les Surprises brought Passion to the Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival and performed it on Sunday 10 September 2023 in the splendour of the Ordenskirche St Georgen, Bayreuth. Véronique Gens was joined by an instrumental ensemble of eleven, directed from the harpsichord and organ by Louis-Noel Bestion de Camboulas with a vocal ensemble of five.

Divided into five acts, each with a theme, the programme explored Lully's music from Persée, Proserpine, Armide, Atys, Amadis, Alceste along with his dance music, plus Henry Desmarest's Circé and La Diane de Fontainebleau, André Cardinal Destouches' Les Elements, Pascal Collasse's Achille et Polyxène and Thétis et Pélée, Rebel's Le Ballet de la Paix and Charpentier's Médée. Each act flowed continuously in the manner of a tragédie lyrique, with Gens' solos focusing on a series of strong women.

From Purcell and Handel to Ignatius Sancho and Duke Ellington: American countertenor Reginald Mobley at Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival

Christine Plubeau, Violaine Cochard, Reginald Mobley - Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival (Photo Bayreuth.Media)

Purcell, Handel, Ignatius Sancho; Reginald Mobley, Violaine Cochard, Christine Plubeau; Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival at the Schlosskirche, Bayreuth
9 September 2023

Dramatically engaging Handel cantatas alongside discoveries of music by Ignatius Sancho, plus Duke Ellington meets notes inégales

The American countertenor Reginald Mobley made his German debut at a concert on Saturday 9 September 2023 in the restrained 18th-century splendour of the Schlosskirche in Bayreuth as part of the Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival. Mobley was joined by harpsichordist Violaine Cochard and viola da gamba player Christine Plubeau for a programme of music by Purcell, Handel and Ignatius Sancho. The three performers performed the same programme earlier this year, when Reginald Mobley made his solo debut in Paris.

We began with Purcell's O Solitude, taken at quite a steady tempo. Mobley was warmly expressive, making much of the words yet providing a richer coloured sound than is often found in this repertoire, with an intriguing expressive use of the change between middle and chest registers. Crown the altar from Celebrate this Festival Z 321 (the 1693 birthday ode for Queen Mary) was lively with the accompaniment bringing out the French influence in Purcell's music, over which Mobley's voice flowed with an easy fluidity. Here the deities approve from Welcome to all the pleasure Z 339 (the 1683 ode to St Cecilia) was poised and strong, followed by a solo piece for the instrumentalists with a singing viola da gamba line leading to imaginative divisions.

Extravagantly theatrical: Handel's Flavio revived by Bayreuth Baroque in the splendour of the 18th-century theatre

Handel: Flavio - Rémy Brès-Feuillet (in bath), Yuriy Mynenko - Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival (Photo: Clemens Manser)

Handel: Flavio; Julia Lezhneva, Max Emanuel Cencic, Monika Jägerová,  Yuriy Mynenko, Rémy Brès Feuillet, director: Max Emanuel Cencic, Concerto Köln, conductor Benjamin Bayl; Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival at the Margravial Opera House, Bayreuth
Reviewed 9 September 2023

An undeserved Handel rarity in a lavish production highlighting the historical background and managing to combine comic and serious

Having revived a real rarity in Vinci's Alessandro nell'Indie in 2022 [see my review], the 2023 Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival opened with, if not a rarity, a work from the Handelian fringes. Handel wrote Flavio for the end of the 1722/23 season, a season that had included the premiere of Handel's Ottone and the sensational London debut of soprano Francesca Cuzzoni. Flavio, which starred Cuzzoni alongside castrato Senesino, received eight performances, and was revived by Handel in 1732. Then it was never performed until 1967 in Göttingen, since when there have been occasional revivals including the Irish Opera Theatre Company in the 1990s and English Touring Opera in 2009 (both productions directed by James Conway).

We caught the second performance, on Saturday 9 September 2023, of Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival's production of Handel's Flavio at the Margravial Opera House in Bayreuth directed Max Emanuel Cencic and conducted by Benjamin Bayl with Concerto Köln in the pit. Sets were by Helmut Stürmer with costumes by Corina Grämosteanu and lighting by Romain De Lagarde. Max Emanuel Cencic took the Senesino role of Guido with Julia Lezhneva in the Cuzzoni role of Emilia. Yuriy Mynenko was Vitige, Monika Jägerová was Teodata, Rémy Brès Feuillet was Flavio with Sreten Manojlovic and Fabio Trümpy as Lotario and Ugone.

Handel: Flavio - Julia Lezhneva, Max Emanuel Cencic - Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival (Photo: Falk von Traubenberg)

Handel's taste in opera was always more varied than that of his patrons and he seems to have had a fondness for that Venetian-style opera mixing comedy and tragedy. During his period at the Royal Academy of Music in the 1720s he tried and failed to persuade his backers to produce Partenope (which he would finally do when he became his own master). His librettist, Nicola Haym seems to have played cello in performances of Flavio in Rome in the 1690s and this may be the origin of Handel's idea to stage it. Flavio is something of a surprise alongside the heroic tragedies of the 1720s. Mixing comedy, pathos and sentimentality with satire and real tragedy, it is a pacey, short piece that pokes fun at opera seria itself.

Operatic arias & overtures by Frederick the Great's court composer, Graun, in the opera house built by the king's sister

Carl Heinrich Graun

Carl Heinrich Graun: opera arias; Valer Sabadus, {oh!} Orkiestra, Martyna Pastuszka; Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival at the Margravial Opera House
Reviewed 8 September 2023

Exploring the entirety of Graun's career in Berlin, this evening of opera overtures and arias from the Romanian-German counter-tenor and Polish orchestra gave us a welcome chance to explore Graun's late-Baroque stye

Carl Heinrich Graun (1704-1759) had a long and fruitful artistic partnership with King Frederick the Great of Prussia. Graun wrote the music for Frederick's marriage celebrations in 1733, taking up a position at the then Crown Prince's rather limited court in 1735 (Frederick was kept on quite a short rein by his father, King Frederick William I).  Things blossomed in 1740 when Frederick became king and sought to re-established Italian opera in Berlin. Whilst Frederick sanctioned the use of 'singing capons', he preferred a more naturalistic stye and Graun's Berlin operas can been seen, with those of Jomelli, to be important experiments in the move towards Reform espoused by Gluck and Calzabigi.

It was thus apposite that the second event of this year's Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival on 8 September 2023 turned its focus to Graun with an evening of Graun's operatic music performed in the Margravial Opera House, (built by King Frederick the Great's sister, Wilhelmine) by Romanian-German counter-tenor Valer Sabadus with {oh!} Orkiestra directed from the violin by Martyna Pastuszka. We heard music from Rodelinda, premiered in 1741 before there was even a new opera house in Berlin, through Cesare e Cleopatra, which inaugurated the Berlin State Opera (Königliche Hofoper) in 1742, to Montezuma from 1755 with a libretto by Frederick the Great himself.

Graun: opera arias - Valer Sabadus, {oh!} Orkiestra, Martyna Pastuszka - Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival (Photo: Clemens Manser)

Celebrating 40 years on stage, Max Emanuel Cencic performs a programme of arias Handel wrote for the castrato Senesino

George Frideric Handel: arias and overtures from Giulio Cesare, Radamisto, Poro, Ricardo Primo, Orlando, Tolomeo and Ezio; Max Emanuel Cencic, Armonea Atenea, George Petrou; Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival at the Markgräfliches Opernhaus
10 September 2022

Amazingly, counter-tenor Max Emanuel Cencic is celebrating 40 years on stage; he started very young, he is now in his mid-40s. Initially a boy treble whose repertoire included the Queen of the Night's aria, as an adult he sang as a high counter-tenor in the soprano range before retraining to sing alto and mezzo-soprano roles. His Handel explorations have been wide-ranging and for the Saturday evening gala (10 September 2022) at the Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival at the Markgräfliches Opernhaus, Bayreuth, Max Emanuel Cencic performed a programme of Handel arias written for the great alto castrato Senesino. The concert took place on the set of Leonardo Vinci's Alessandro nell'Indie [see my review], in Prinny's red and gold Gothick drawing room, and Cencic was joined on stage by George Petrou and Armonia Atenea. We heard overtures from Radamisto, Giulio Cesare and Tolomeo, plus arias from Giulio Cesare, Radamisto, Poro, Ricardo Primo, Orlando, Tolomeo and Ezio. 

Couperin's Trois Leçons de Ténèbres pour le Mercredi Saint at Bayreuth Baroque

Ordenskirche St Georgen, Bayreuth

Couperin: Trois Leçons de Ténèbres pour le Mercredi Saint;  Chantal Santon, Marie Théoleyre, Loris Barrucand, François Gallon; Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival at Ordenskirche St Georgen
Reviewed 10 September 2022 (★★★★)

Wonderfully idiomatic performances of Couperin's surviving lessons bringing out the rhetorical aspect of the music

Saturday afternoon's concert (10 September 2022) at Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival took place in the Ordenskirche St Georgen in what is now Bayreuth St Georgen, a suburb. But in the early 18th century it was to be planned new town surrounding a palace by an artificial lake, which had been created in the 17th century so the then Margrave could sail his model boats. It wasn't finished and the palace became a prison. The church, however, is glorious; almost square, galleried and delightfully elaborate. Completed in 1711, it was the church for the Margrave's order of knighthood, the Ordre de la Sincérité. 

The concert took us to the France contemporary with the church, as Chantal Santon (soprano), Marie Théoleyre (soprano), Loris Barrucand (organ) and François Gallon (cello) performed Couperin's Trois Leçons de Ténèbres pour le Mercredi Saint. Written for performance in the Abbaye royale de Longchamp in 1714 they were originally part of a group, but the other two sets of lessons for Thursday and Friday have alas been lost. Illness had forced a change of cast with Chantal Santon stepping in, but you couldn't tell.

The performers gave us an affecting sequence of 18th century French music, but frustratingly not everything was specified, and I am not sure which singer sang which lesson. So we began with two unaccompanied, invisible voices as if from the heavens, singing I think, part of Couperin's third lesson. Then an organ prelude leading into the first lesson, for solo soprano, organ and cello. Though her diction was not quite crisp, it was good to have a native French speaker singing the French-inflected Latin. Her voice had an attractive richness to it, with an expressive use of vibrato.

The Trocs go to the opera? Vinci’s Alessandro nell’Indie with five counter-tenors at Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival

Leonardo Vinci: Alessandro nell'Indie - Jake Arditti & dancers (Photo Falk von Traubenberg)

Leonardo Vinci: Alessandro nell’Indie; Franco Fagioli, Bruno de Sà, Jake Arditti, Maayan Licht, Stefan Sbonnik, Nicholas Tamagna, director: Max Emanuel Cencic, (oh!) Orkiestra, music director: Martyna Pastuszka; Bayreuth Baroque Festival at the Markgräfliches Opernhaus Bayreuth
Reviewed 9 September 2022 (★★★★★)

A brilliantly theatrical and superbly sung re-imagining of an opera seria reflecting the work’s premiere by an all-male cast
 

Max Emanuel Cencic’s Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival takes place in and around the Markgräfliches Opernhaus, Bayreuth, the restored 18th century theatre in Bayreuth, originally built by Wilhelmine, Margravine of Bayreuth and sister to Frederick the Great. A striking and handsome building, one of the biggest theatres in Germany at the time, the festival enables it to be used for the staging of 18th century opera.
 

The auditorium of the Markgräfliches Opernhaus, Bayreuth (Photo Bayerische Schlösserverwaltung)

This year the focus was on Leonardo Vinci’s Alessandro nell’Indie written for Rome in 1730 and though it was popular it was probably never performed after 1740. The opera was the first setting of Metastasio’s early (and also very popular) libretto, which Handel would transform into Poro. As the premiere of Vinci’s Alessandro nell’Indie was in Rome, the female roles were all taken by castrati, something that happened in Continental Europe but never in England. This production at Bayreuth reflected this with both female characters being played by counter-tenors and this ethos extended to the dance troupe where four of the men performed in (very convincing) drag.
 

Max Emanuel Cencic directed Leonardo Vinci’s Alessandro nell’Indie (seen 9 September 2022) with Franco Fagioli as Poro, Bruno de Sà as Cleofide (female), Jake Arditti as Erissena (female), Maayan Licht as Alessandro, Stefan Sbonnik as Gandarte, Nicholas Tamagna as Timagene, with (oh!) Orkiestra directed from the violin by Martyna Pastuszka. Set design was by Domenico Franchi, costumes by Giuseppe Palella, lighting by David Debrinay and choreography by Sumon Rudra.