Giovanni Battista Ferrandini’s opera Catone in Utica is a central work in the history of Bavarian music. The Cuvilliés Theater in the Munich Residence was ceremonially opened on October 12, 1753 with the composition by the Munich chamber composer. The libretto, which deals with the tragic life of the Roman statesman Marcus Porcius Cato (the Younger), was written by the famous opera librettist Pietro Metastasio and was so popular that it was set to music around 30 times. Ferrandini’s music-theatrical realization is now available for the first time in a scholarly edition edited by Sabine Kurth.

An important impetus for the edition of the work as part of the Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Bayern was provided by a performance on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the Cuvilliés Theater, which was performed by the Neue Hofkapelle and the ensemble of the Gärtnerplatztheater in Munich under the direction of Christoph Hammer at the site of its premiere.