(Photo: Zani-Casadio) Is it a wise decision to perform two independent works by the same composer on consecutive nights, using a very similar cast, the same stage director, the same basic set, similar or in some cases the same costumes with the same musical director and orchestra? Well, this is exactly what the Ravenna Festival decided to do for its stagings {…}
Innsbrucker Festwochen der Alten Musik announces its program for the 2026 season. This article only features opera events. Opening the festival is the workshop concert which features a sneak peak into Ottavio Dantone’s reconstruction of Pietro Antonio Cesti’s “Il pomo d’oro.” This event is presented in a a hybrid format combining elements of concert and rehearsal. The Accademia Bizantina Ensemble {…}
(Photo: Zani-Casadi) For the November installment of the Ravenna Festival, it was decided to present a Händel trilogy, comprising two fully staged operas, “Orlando” and “Alcina,” and a concert performance of his oratorio “The Messiah.” First up was the composer’s 1733 composition, “Orlando,” written to a libretto by Carlo Sigismondo Capece, which premiered at London’s King’s Theatre and ran for {…}
(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 {…}
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 {…}
(Photo: ©Zani-Casadio) In the autumn of 1709, as he was preparing to conclude his journey through Italy, George Frideric Handel triumphantly arrived in Venice to present his second Italian opera, “Agrippina.” The work was enthusiastically received by the audience, who acclaimed the composer with shouts of “Viva il Sassone!” (Long live the Saxon!) and with 27 performances that sealed its {…}
(Photo: Zani-Casdio) It was well after midnight when the final curtain fell on Teatro Alighieri’s production of Händel’s “Giulio Cesare.” It was a long evening, although, such was the quality of the presentation, there would have been few complaints even if it had continued for another hour or more. It was one of those performances in which the singing, the {…}
OperaWire met up with English soprano Charlotte Bowden between performances of Monteverdi’s “Il Ritorno di Ulisse in Patria” and a double Purcell bill of “Hail! Bright St. Cecilia” and “Dido and Aeneas” at the Ravenna festival, in which she was essaying the roles of Melanto, a solo soprano and Belinda, respectively. Although she only recently graduated from the Royal College {…}
(Photo: Zani-Casadio) Following on from the previous day’s performance of Monteverdi’s “Il Ritorno di Ulisse in Patria,” Ravenna’s Teatro Alighieri continued with a production of Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas” coupled with “Hail, Bright Cecelia,” presented by the same cast under the musical direction of Ottavio Dantone. The fact that Pier Luigi Pizzi, who had been responsible for the lackluster staging {…}
(Photo: Zani-Casadio) In his program notes, the director, Pier Luigi Pizzi, writing about “Il Ritorno di Ulisse in Patria,” stated that “the opera speaks for itself,” adding, “we must not induce or force its interpretation… It is up to the audience to confront it, to think about it, and to decide for themselves whether or not it is worthwhile.” Even {…}
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 {…}
