Flavio, re de’ Longobardi
Leonardo Vinci
Dramma per musica in three acts by George Frideric Handel. Text by Nicola Francesco Haym.
The Bayreuth Baroque Opera Fesival opens up its fourth edition with George Frideric Handel’s dramma per musica Flavio, Re de’ Longobardi, a piece that has been performed all too rarely until now. As music drama, Handel broke new ground with this work: it is relatively short, and the form of opera seria is creatively and inventively enriched with subtle comedy and elements of satirical parody – forged in highly emotional and powerfully expressive theatre music. It is all the more astonishing that the opera premiered in 1723 in London is among Handel’s least known works, also in the twenty-first century.