Max Emanuel Cenčić

Baroque opera is a battlefield once more. Just as 17th-century Venice thrived on rivalry, dazzle and excess, today’s Early Music scene brims with competition. Into this arena, the Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival — founded only in 2020 — has stormed with astonishing speed, staking its claim through neglected Italian gems and the intoxicating intimacy of the UNESCO-listed Margravial Opera House. No dry concepts here: Bayreuth trades in beauty, detail, and theatrical seduction. This year’s jewel, Cavalli’s Pompeo Magno (1666), became both a Venetian centrepiece and a specialist’s odyssey under conductor Leonardo García-Alarcón.

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Every year, Bayreuth Baroque stages a new production directed by Max Emanuel Cencic, the artistic director and creative head of the festival. This year, he is staging the love drama Alessandro nell'Indie by Leonardo Vinci based on a libretto by Pietro Metastasio. Alessandro nell'Indie was published in Rome in 1730, where women were barred from performing for religious reasons. The Bayreuth production takes up this fact with an all-male cast featuring the Brazilian soprano Bruno de Sá and the countertenors Franco Fagioli and Jake Arditti in the leading roles. The orchestra is the Polish {OH!} Orkiestra Historyczna under the direction of Martyna Pastuszka. The Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival stages music theater in the authentic ambience of the Margravial Opera House in Bayreuth.

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Set to the backdrop of the Highlanders revolt against the Crown of Scotland, three men are in love with the same woman, Elena, the daughter of the king’s main opponent: Rodrigo, a warrior highlander, Malcolm, a valiant servant of the cause and Uberto, aka King Giacomo V, in disguise. Triumphant both militarily and politically, the king finally extends his pardon to Douglas’ family and offers Elena’s hand to the man she loves, Malcolm…

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Francesco Cavalli's incandescent opera, where tragedy rubs shoulders with comedy, and burlesque alternates with deep emotion. Max Emanuel Cenčić directs a lively production, drawing on the codes of commedia dell'arte. This game of love and chance combines passion, betrayal, and power struggles. The countertenor takes on the title role, while Leonardo García Alarcón conducts the Cappella Mediterranea.

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On the way to the Trojan War, the king of Mycenae killed a sacred doe belonging to Diana, an offense for which the goddess of war demands the sacrifice of the daughter of the leader of the Achaeans.

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In the 18th century, Hamburg Opera broke free from the influence of Italy, giving rise to a new musical culture in Germany. Counter-tenor Max Emanuel Cenčić offers us a glimpse of this vibrant operatic life from the stage of the stunning Margravial Opera House in Bayreuth, accompanied by Christoph Rousset's Les Talens Lyriques. Chapters: - Reinhard Keiser - Georg Friedrich Haendel - Alessandro Scarlatti - Arcangelo Corelli - Johann Mattheson - Georg Philipp Telemann - Nicola Porpora

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Set to the backdrop of the Highlanders revolt against the Crown of Scotland, three men are in love with the same woman, Elena, the daughter of the king’s main opponent: Rodrigo, a warrior highlander, Malcolm, a valiant servant of the cause and Uberto, aka King Giacomo V, in disguise. Triumphant both militarily and politically, the king finally extends his pardon to Douglas’ family and offers Elena’s hand to the man she loves, Malcolm…

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Max Emanuel Cencic excels with his celebrated and award-winning production of George Frideric Handels masterpiece Arminio at the International Handel Festival Karlsruhe. The remarkable counter-tenor Cencic, who dedicates himself to the revival and performance of the music of the 18th century, demonstrates once more that Baroque singing can be both technically brilliant and at the same time modern and emotionally engaging. His enchanting staging of Arminio is the revival of the heroic story. When premiered in 1737 at Londons Covent Garden Arminio strangely received only six performances, despite being praised as a miracle and in every respect excellent and vastly pleasing by contemporaries.

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