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Reviews, Stage Reviews

Innsbruck Early Music Festival 2025 Review: Il Giustino

https://operawire.com/innsbruck-early-music-festival-2025-review-il-giustino/

(Photo: Birgit Gufler) Each year, the Innsbruck Early Music Festival presents its Oper: Jung, an opera performed by singers in the early stages of their careers, who recently made strong impressions at the festival’s Cesti competition. It is an event that rarely disappoints. Not only are the productions of a very high standard, but it is also exciting to watch {…}

Reviews, Stage Reviews

Innsbruck Early Music Festival 2025 Review: Ifigenia in Aulide

https://operawire.com/innsbruck-early-music-festival-2025-review-ifigenia-in-aulide/

(Photo:Birgit Gufler) In 1718, the Venetian composer Antonio Caldara and the librettist Apostolo Zeno premiered their opera “Ifigenia in Aulide” for the imperial court in Vienna to celebrate Emperor Karl VI of Austria’s name day. This summer, over three hundred years since its last staging, the Innsbruck Early Music Festival brought together a stellar cast under the musical direction of {…}

Interviews, Stage Spotlight

Q & A: Countertenor Rafał Tomkiewicz on Playing Oreste at This Summer’s Early Music Festival in Innsbruck

https://operawire.com/q-a-countertenor-rafal-tomkiewicz-on-playing-oreste-at-this-summers-early-music-festival-in-innsbruck/

(Photo: Iga Beata Mackiewicz) Countertenor Rafal Tomkiewicz first came to the attention of OperaWire in 2018 at the Innsbruck Early Music Festival, where he was competing in the final of the Cesti Competition. It was an event that proved to be a springboard that launched his international career. Since that time, Tomkiewicz has seen his profile rise and now performs {…}

DVD and CD Reviews, Reviews

CD Review: Innsbruck Early Music Festival’s ‘Il trionfo della Fama’

https://operawire.com/cd-review-innsbruck-early-music-festivals-il-trionfo-della-fama/

As usual, the 2024 Innsbruck Early Music Festival brought a rare work to the stage: Francesco Bartolomeo Conti’s “Il trionfo della Fama,” a one-act serenata composed in 1723 for the coronation of Emperor Charles VI and Empress Elisabeth Christine in Prague. Conceived as court propaganda, the serenata was commissioned to glorify imperial virtues and Habsburgs’ claims to the divine favor {…}

Special Features

Documenting the Evolution of an Early Music Orchestra & the Innsbruck Festival

https://operawire.com/documenting-the-evolution-of-an-early-music-orchestra-the-innsbruck-festival/

The story of how Accademia Bizantina (AB) began seems quite simple. But like all good stories, there is more to it than meets the eye. In 1983 three classmates of the Ravenna Conservatory met for coffee. This initial meeting included Angelo Nicastro, a violist and now director of the Ravenna Festival; Romano Valentini, a pianist, organist, and harpsichordist, as well {…}

Reviews, Stage Reviews

Innsbruck Early Music Festival 2023 Review: Juditha Triumphans

https://operawire.com/innsbruck-early-music-festival-2023-review-juditha-triumphans/

(Photo: Birgit Gufler) At the final curtain call of the Innsbruck Early Music Festival’s splendid production of Vivaldi’s only surviving oratorio, “Judtha Triumphans,” the loudest acclamation was reserved for its conductor, Alessandro De Marchi. After 13 years as its artistic director, he is stepping down from the position. The genuine warmth the festival audience showed towards De Marchi was clearly {…}

Reviews, Stage Reviews

Innsbruck Early Music Festival 2023 Review: L’Olimpiade

https://operawire.com/innsbruck-early-music-festival-2023-review-lolimpiade/

(Photo: Birgit Gufler) After 13 years in the post, Alessandro De Marchi brings his tenure as the artistic director of the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music to a close with a program dominated by the Venetian composer Antonio Vivaldi. Not only do many of the festival’s events feature his music, including the festival’s closing concert “Lieto Fine,” but all three {…}

Reviews, Stage Reviews

Innsbruck Early Music Festival 2022 Review: Cesti Competition

https://operawire.com/innsbruck-early-music-festival-2022-review-cesti-competition/

(Photo: Die Fotografen) The Innsbruck Early Music Festival’s Cesti Competition, now in its 13th year, continues to cement its standing as a prestige international singing competition for baroque specialists. The final, which took place in Innsbruck’s Haus der Musik in front of an enthusiastic audience, consisted of 10 singers from six countries, comprising two countertenors, five sopranos, two tenors and {…}

Reviews, Stage Reviews

Innsbruck Early Music Festival 2022 Review: Astarto

https://operawire.com/innsbruck-early-music-festival-2022-review-astarto/

(Photo: Birgit Gufler) Whenever Silvia Paoli’s name is listed as the director for a forthcoming production, one can be fairly certain that it is not going to disappoint. Over the past few years, OperaWire has reviewed a number of her productions, all of which were not just marvelously entertaining, but also very insightful. She has the not-so-common ability to get {…}