Pinchgut Opera has announced a new podcast series entitled “Baroque Banter.”

 The series dives into the world of baroque music, providing listeners with an opportunity to engage with early opera in a truly unique manner. 

“I think a lot of people are a little mystified when they approach early opera—it is just so different from the more familiar opera we know from the nineteenth century,” stated Artistic Director Erin Helyard. “But actually when you begin to look at it closely you see all the building blocks of opera. And in fact the nineteenth century is just an extension of so many familiar tropes and devices that began all those years ago in Venice in the 1640s. These podcasts break those elements down for you—and we look at how the language of opera was invented and how it developed.”

The first episode of the series includes “The Incantation Scene” and the second is entitled “Erin Helyard with Chas Rader-Shieder.” Episodes three and four are titled “The Sleeping Scene” and “Erin Helyard in conversation with Simon Rickard.” The company is set to launch the next installment in July.