Pompeo Magno
Francesco Cavalli
New production | Dramma per musica in three acts | Director: Max Emanuel Cencic, Musical Director: Leonardo García-Alarcón
Dramma per musica in three acts by Francesco Cavalli
Text by Nicolò Minato
In Italian with German and English surtitles
Intermissions after Acts I and II
The great military leader Gnaeus Pompeius (Pompeo Magno) has returned victorious to Rome after his third campaign and is given a hero’s welcome by the grandees of the realm and by Caesar himself. But this is not the time to rest on his laurels, for a secret war, this time without the strident alarums of battle, is being fought behind closed doors at the Roman court, waged between love, desire, treachery and jealousy: Sesto, Pompeo’s son, desires the beautiful prisoner of war Issicratea, not realising she is the wife of the supposedly dead Mitridate, an adversary of the great Pompeo. But Mitridate is alive and well, living incognito in Rome, where he tests the faithfulness of his wife and the loyalty of his son Farnace. Pompeo himself is in love with Caesar’s daughter Giulia, who has already promised her heart to Servilio. The feared conqueror must now prove himself as a sensitive human being as well …
Taking centre stage of the Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival 2025 is the scenic production of Francesco Cavalli’s incandescent opera about confusion and intrigue Pompeo Magno. First performed in 1666 at the Teatro San Salvatore in Venice, the works stands at the apex of the early history of opera, in which all elements shaping the contemporary art of music theatre are consummately interwoven as a densely compact and multifaceted drama. Tragic is juxtaposed to comic, profound emotions interchange with droll grotesquerie. Max Emanual Cenci stages this colourful drama with its rich diversity of characters from the merry and inebriated Carnival season and the commedia dell’arte with scintillating ideas and at a dashing pace. At his side he has a top class ensemble of singers and the Cappella Mediterranea under Leonardo García-Alarcón as a team of specialists in the music of the Italian seicento.
A talk about the production between director Max Emanual Cencic and the dramaturg Dr David Treffinger will take place on 5 and 13 September at 5pm in the Steingraeber Chamber Music Hall, Steingraeberpassage 1. Admission free.
