Leonardo Vinci

Live broadcast of the opera performance held on November 10, 2012 at the Opéra national de Lorraine in Nancy, performed by five world-class countertenors.

Young and athletic Sydney Harris finds out that she has six months to live unless she and her husband can come up with the money for her medical treatment. Sounds simple enough; get the money, save her life. But her underpaid, working class husband can't afford the treatment. And time is ticking away. As Sydney begins to seek out a means to save her life, she begins to question her existence and does some soul searching, only to find herself falling in love with a single mom in the neighborhood that Sydney and her family have just moved into. Sydney is then forced to choose between her religious upbringing, her husband and son, and a love that she hides, all while fighting a losing battle to save her own life.

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.

The adventures of the captain and the damsel unfold amid disguises and dances, romantic schemes and flirtations, leading to a happy ending. In the original play, the composer himself guides the audience through the story of his life.