Max Emanuel Cencic, Franco Fagioli and Julia Lezhneva revive Nicola Porpora’s “Carlo il Calvo”, a rare Roman opera transformed into a mafia saga at the Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival. 
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Presented in September 2020 to inaugurate the Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival, Nicola Porpora’s Carlo il Calvo marked the birth of the event with the scale of its cast and the spectacular nature of its staging. Max Emanuel Cencic, who also sings the role of Lottario, transposes the medieval plot to a world inspired by the 1920s and 1930s, somewhere between the Balkans and Turkey, where rival clans, sumptuous costumes and settling of scores evoke the great mafia sagas. George Petrou conducts Armonia Atenea, with a cast including Franco Fagioli, Julia Lezhneva, Suzanne Jerosme and Bruno de Sá.
An all-male Roman opera
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