The 2022 Innsbruck Early Music Festival once again featured a major operatic excavation, now released on CPO: Silla by Carl Heinrich Graun. The libretto is based on a “pièce dramatique” written by none other than Frederick II, King of Prussia. It centres on the Roman dictator Lucius Cornelius Silla, who establishes a bloody regime of terror and finally, to everyone’s surprise, announces his abdication. Of course, Silla – as the laws of opera demand – seeks his conquests in love affairs as well. Two of the world’s best as well as most sought-after countertenors of our days: Bejun Mehta and Valer Sabadus were on stage. “The score is a great success, the second act with its stringent intensification easily one of the most exciting opera acts of the middle 18th century. The long rejoicing was above all for the singers, the musical performance of the Innsbruck Festival Orchestra under Alessandro De Marchi, and the joyful astonishment at a late Baroque opera that stands out fascinatingly from the bulk of creation around 1750,” wrote the Neue Musikzeitung after the performance.

Cast:
- Silla: Bejun Mehta (countertenor)
- Metello: Valer Sabadus (countertenor)
- Lentullo: Hagen Matzeit (countertenor)
- Postumio: Samuel Mariño (male soprano)
- Ottavia: Eleonora Bellocci (soprano)
- Fulvia: Roberta Invernizzi (soprano)
- Crisogono: Mert Süngü (tenor)