Overview
Straddling Renaissance and Baroque
Claudio Monteverdi’s long career traversed the late Renaissance madrigal and early Baroque opera. His music reaches back to the glowing embers of mediaeval tradition and lunges forward into the modern world. Modernity in this case consists of the unprecedented fusion of music and words to portray psychological states and convey emotion.
As the outstanding madrigalist, and a creator of monumental church music, Monteverdi enjoys an illustrious place in the history of music. But by virtue of being the first truly great composer working in the fledgling genre of opera, he is propelled into pole position. Although not the inventor of the musico-dramatic form, his L’Orfeo (1607) is the earliest opera that continues to be performed regularly around the world, and it can be argued that it is the first ‘fable in music’ to reveal the emotional, lyrical, musical and dramatic capabilities of the genre.
Monteverdi raised opera from its infancy to its first flowers of maturity. The chiaroscuro depth and artistic qualities of his achievements are entirely comparable to his contemporaries Shakespeare and Caravaggio, and as a musical dramatist he ranks in the highest level of the pantheon of greats, alongside Handel, Mozart and Verdi.
All three operas – and a new reconstruction of a fourth
Only two or three generations ago, the rare performances of Monteverdi operas were arcane events, approached by both musicians and their audiences more in the spirit of antiquarian enquiry than aesthetic delight. Now they are mainstream, core repertoire at many opera houses worldwide. Most audiences are now as much at ease with historically-informed performances on period instruments as with those given by ‘modern’ orchestras. And Monteverdi’s popularity continues to grow.
Tragically, only three of his many operas survive in complete versions – and we present all three in this festival (L’Orfeo, Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria and L’incoronazione di Poppea). So why does our subtitle proclaim ‘the four operas’?
The festival features the world première of the reconstruction of L’Arianna by Claudio Cavina, a renowned Monteverdi specialist and director of the prize-winning ensemble La Venexiana. The famous eleven-minute lament survives, as does the libretto, but everything else is lost; Cavina, using a mixture of scholarly speculation and artistic insight, has woven together a hypothetical musical setting to fit the rest of the libretto, paraphrasing and taking ideas from other Monteverdi compositions.
Venice, the perfect setting
Born in the ancient Lombard city of Cremona, by 1592 Monteverdi was working as a musician at the highly cultured court in Mantua. Here he spent twenty years in the service of the Gonzaga family. It was for Mantua that L’Orfeo and L’Arianna were composed, as were two other lost operas commissioned after he had left for Venice.
Aggrieved at his mistreatment, he was eventually fired for dissent in July 1612. But a year later he was employed as maestro di capella at the Basilica di San Marco in Venice, one of the most prestigious musical appointments in Europe. Monteverdi spent the remaining thirty years of his life based here; Venice was still one of the most prosperous trading centres in Europe and capital of an extensive empire.
La Serenissima was also a major centre of music. One Venetian innovation was the licencing, in 1637, of public theatres. For these commercial enterprises L’Arianna was revived and Monteverdi composed three new operas, including Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria and L’Incoronazione di Poppea.
There is a special frisson arising from hearing music in appropriate historic buildings and in the place for which it was written – especially when that place is the most beautiful city on Earth, the performers are among the finest specialist interpreters and the venues are visually glorious.
Private performances
This is a unique and probably unprecedented opportunity to hear all the surviving operas by Monteverdi in the utterly enchanting and entirely authentic context of the art, architecture and atmosphere of Venice. There are also concerts featuring madrigals and liturgical music.
Performances of the operas will vary from concert versions to costumed and animated productions. None is fully staged, but the small size of the venues and the limited numbers in the audience will lead to an informality and intimacy which engender a rare intensity of music communication.
The performances are private, being exclusive to the approximately 230 participants who take a package which includes accommodation (from a choice of six hotels), flights from/to London (you can opt out of these), airport transfers by water taxi, free vaporetto journeys, daily lectures, three dinners, interval drinks and much else besides.
There will also be walks and visits led by art historians to choose from, and the opportunity of joining a pre-festival tour, Art History of Venice.
The performances
L’Orfeo
I Fagiolini
Robert Hollingworth director
La Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista
Monteverdi’s first favola in musica was produced in February 1607 in the ducal palace at Mantua. The libretto by Alessandro Striggio relates the legend of the musician Orpheus losing his bride Eurydice and attempting to rescue her from the underworld. It had also been the subject of the two earliest operas to survive, both created for Florence at the turn of the century by Jacopo Peri and Giulio Caccini.
Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo adopted similar ingredients of recitative, monody, aria, chorus and instrumental ritornelli, but he produced a work of greater emotional scale, subtler musical flexibility and tauter dramatic organisation. His score is incomparably more compelling, with richer harmony and sweeter melody contributing indispensably to mood and character.
Why, if this is the first of Monteverdi’s operas, does it appear last in the festival? Logistical factors contributed to this decision, but there are musical reasons as well. The work has the hallmarks of dramatic grandeur, psychological power and musical finesse which render it a fitting finale to our festival.
This is a semi-staged production.
Principals: Matthew Long Orfeo, Clare Wilkinson Euridice
L’Arianna
La Venexiana
Claudio Cavina director
La Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista
This one-act tragedia was first performed on 28 May 1608 in Mantua as part of the wedding celebrations of heir-apparent Francesco Gonzaga and Margaret of Savoy.
Although a great success with its international audience, the preparations had been far from smooth – the marriage had been delayed by political wranglings, and the soprano Caterina Martinelli, a young singer trained by Monteverdi and who was to sing the title-role, suddenly died from smallpox. But it seems to have been regarded by contemporaries as the finest of Monteverdi’s Mantuan operas.
The libretto by Ottavio Rinuccini tells the story of Ariadne, the Cretan princess of Greek myth, who is abandoned by Theseus on the island of Naxos (but ends up happily in the arms of Bacchus). The complete text survives, but all that remains of the music is Ariadne’s famous eleven-minute lament. We are pleased to present the world première performance of a reconstruction of this one-act opera compiled by Claudio Cavina.
This is an unstaged concert performance.
Principals: Francesca Lombardi Mazzulli Arianna, Riccardo Pisani Teseo, Raffaele Pè Apollo, Margherita Rotondi Venere, Monica Piccinini Amore
Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria
La Venexiana
Claudio Cavina director
La Scuola Grande di San Rocco
Monteverdi spent most of his Venetian years providing church music for St Mark’s and other institutions, and occasionally madrigals, often with instruments and declamatory solo voice parts. However, at the age of 72 he produced Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, not only his first opera for Venice but one of the very first musical entertainments designed for a commercial, public theatre.
For this masterpiece, Giacomo Badoardo’s libretto based on episodes from Homer’s Odyssey allowed plenty of opportunity for action and narrative momentum. Above all, with a cast largely consisting of human beings rather than a preponderance of gods or mythological archetypes, there is subtle characterisation, portrayal of psychological states and brilliant expression of ever-shifting emotions. The stimulation of affective response in the audience is the equal of any work in the subsequent history of opera.
The original performance was well received, and the opera accorded the rare accolade of revival almost immediately in Bologna and in Venice the next season.
This is a semi-staged production.
Principals: Riccardo Pisani Ulisse, Margherita Rotondi Penelope, Monica Piccinini Minerva, Salvo Vitale Nettuno, Raffaele Giordani Telemaco
L’Incoronazione di Poppea
Academy of Ancient Music
Robert Howarth director
La Scuola Grande di San Rocco
Composed in 1643, the last year of Monteverdi’s life, L’incoronazione di Poppea seems to take another leap forward towards astonishing modernity – although, of course, the composer created it within the typically Venetian anti-heroic and ironic theatrical conventions of his time.
Exclusively among Monteverdi’s operas, the libretto by Giovanni Francesco Busanello is historical rather than mythological: the Emperor Nero is determined to marry his mistress, Poppea. Action is relatively subdued, for this is an intense drama of emotional and political brutality, presenting realistically self-obsessed people in situations motivated by sexual lust and political avarice.
No characters are discernibly moral or reasonable except the political outcast Seneca, and the drama’s topos as a celebration of amoral libertine triumph set the tone for Venetian opera for decades to come – and seems closer to modern-day attitudes of hedonistic materialism and ruthless ambition than most of the operas that have been written since.
Principals: Mhairi Lawson Poppea, Renata Pokupic Nerone, Daniela Lehner Ottavia, Iestyn Davies Ottone, Sophie Junker Drusilla
Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda
Monteverdi String Band
Oliver Webber director
Karolina Sofaluk stage director
Ateneo Veneto
Monteverdi’s extraordinary dramatic madrigal Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda describes the fatal duel between a knight and a lady in disguise. It was written in 1624 for a domestic entertainment during carnival season at the home of the Venetian nobleman Girolamo Mocenigo.
The Monteverdi String Band and a group of expert singers recreate the original context, which would have included music, movement and entertainment in addition to Il combattimento (which will be staged).
Cast: Nicholas Mulroy Testo, Simon Wall Tancredi, Anna Dennis Clorinda
Da capella e da concerto: Monteverdi’s sacred music
Odhecaton
A Venetian church
No festival of Monteverdi would be complete without a sampling of his diverse church music. Acclaimed Italian specialists Odhecaton present the Missa In illo tempore, a renaissance polyphonic mass for six-part voices. Based on a motet by Gombert, and composed by Monteverdi during his years in Mantua, the mass was published in the same anthology as the famous 1610 Vespers. The programme also features a range of sacred music composed by Monteverdi later on in Venice, including some motets in the more modern baroque ‘concerto’ style, such as a recently rediscovered Salve Regina for three voices and basso continuo (published posthumously in the 1660s). We also hear the madrigalesque motet Cantate Domino (printed 1620) and music from Monteverdi’s monumental anthology Selva morale e spirituale (1641), including a spectacular seven-part Gloria and the Pianto della Madonna (a sacred contrafact of the lament from L’Arianna).
Lacrime d’amante: Monteverdi’s madrigals
La Compagnia del Madrigale
Palazzo Zenobio
Our festival presents a feast of modern baroque Monteverdi, with the operas, the theatrically-charged stile concitato late madrigal Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda and some of his most progressive Venetian church music. However, in this concert we turn the microscope onto a range of the finest unaccompanied madrigals, specially selected for us by multiple award-winning Italian madrigal specialists La Compagnia del Madrigale. Bookended by two large-scale Mantuan laments connected to the opera L’Arianna, both taken from the Sixth Book of Madrigals (printed in Venice in 1614 after Monteverdi had moved there), we shall also hear some exquisite music from the earlier Fourth and Fifth books, and also one of the composer’s ‘sacred’ moral madrigals taken from Selva morale e spirituale (published towards the end of his life in 1641).
The venues
La Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista
La Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista was one of the greatest of the Venetian scuole – charitable, religious and social institutions which provided platforms for much of the city’s cultural life. The Renaissance transformation of their premises which began in the 1480s culminates in a glorious hall, which was further embellished in the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. The building is not generally open to the public. L’Orfeo and L’Arianna are performed here.
La Scuola Grande di San Rocco
The most magnificent of all confraternity premises, La Scuola Grande di San Rocco was constructed in the first half of the sixteenth century. In the 1570s the great hall was adorned with a magnificent cycle of dynamic and highly-charged canvasses by Tintoretto. In combination with the gilded woodwork, this created one of the most lavish interiors in Venice, and one of the most glorious halls in Europe. Ulisse and Poppea are performed here.
Ateneo Veneto
The Ateneo Veneto was built in the 1590s as the Scuola di San Fantin. Since the confraternity’s dissolution in 1806, the building has become the seat of various cultural societies. The main hall is decorated with elaborate woodwork and paintings (artists include Veronese and Palma Il Giovane). As the hall is small, the performance is to be repeated. Il combattimento is performed here.
A Venetian church
The concert of Monteverdi’s sacred music takes place in one of Venice’s many churches. At the time of publication the final choice had not been made.
Palazzo Zenobio
The Palazzo Zenobio, located off the beaten track in the Dorsoduro, was built at the end of the seventeenth century, and the ballroom is one of the most richly decorated Baroque halls in Venice. The madrigal programme is performed here.
More about the concerts
Exclusive access. The concerts are private, being planned, promoted and administered by Martin Randall Travel exclusively for an audience consisting of those who have taken the full festival package.
Seating. Specific seats are not reserved. You sit where you want.
Comfort. Seats in the church are likely to be pews; consider bringing a cushion. In another couple of venues heating is inadequate; expect to wear coat and gloves during those concerts.
Concert times. Two of the five venues are too small to accommodate all 230 participants and so these concerts are repeated.
Staging. Productions vary from concert versions to animated or semi-staged productions with costumes and props, but for none will there be scenery or sophisticated lighting. No venue is a theatre with a stage or proscenium arch.
Changes. Musicians fall ill, venues close for repair, airlines alter schedules: there are many possible unpredictable circumstances which could necessitate changes to the programme. We ask you to be understanding should they occur.
The festival package
Access to the concerts is exclusive to those who take the festival package, the price for which includes the following items:
Seven concerts, including four opera performances. Tickets to individual events will not be available.
Accommodation for five nights in one of six carefully selected hotels in Venice.
Flights between London and Venice, from Heathrow or Gatwick. There is a price reduction if you make your own arrangements.
Airport transfers by private motoscafi from Venice Airport to the hotels and vice versa. If you have booked your own flights, you can join these transfers.
Vaporetto pass allowing unlimited use of water buses for seven days.
Meals: all breakfasts and three dinners with wine, water and coffee. Interval drinks are provided during three operas (there is no interval during the other concerts).
Daily lectures on the music by Dr David Vickers and Professor John Bryan.
All tips for restaurant staff and porters. • All taxes and obligatory charges.
Festival staff, Italian-speaking, will be present to facilitate the smooth running of the event.
Programme booklet: every participant is issued with a booklet which contains information about the itinerary, the concerts and operas, and Venice.
In addition, there are extra services which can be booked:
The option of arriving a day early.
A package of an extra two dinners, which means each evening is spent in the company of other festival participants (details available at a later stage).
A range of visits and short walks led by art historians and appropriate experts (details available at a later stage).
Hotels
We have selected six hotels for this festival. All are 4- or 5-star. The hotel is the sole determinant of the different prices for the festival package.
Quiet? Though blessedly free of the sound of vehicular traffic, motor boats and street life mean that few hotels can be guaranteed to be absolutely quiet.
Luggage. Suitcases with wheels are strongly advised. All the hotels have their own mooring points however there is a short walk between the Venice airport terminal and the motoscafi landing stage.
Rooms vary. As is inevitable in historic buildings, rooms vary in size and outlook.
Suites and rooms with views. Some hotels have suites and rooms with views of the Grand Canal. All are subject to availability at the time of booking.
The prices given are all per person. A list of what is included is given above.
Arriving a day early. Prices are also given for arriving in your chosen hotel the day before the festival starts – separate flight options are available.
There is a reduction of £220 if you choose not to take one of the festival flights.
Hotel Bonvecchiati,4-star
Arriving 1st November, per person:
Superior double/twin £2,860
Superior double for single use £3,220
Arriving 2nd November, per person:
Superior double/twin £2,730
Superior double for single use £3,090
Splendid Venice, 4-star
Arriving 1st November, per person:
Deluxe double/twin £3,740
Deluxe double for single use £4,230
Arriving 2nd November, per person:
Deluxe double/twin £3,560
Deluxe double for single use £4,050
Palazzo Sant'Angelo, 4-star
Arriving 1st November, per person:
Deluxe double/twin £3,860
Junior Suite £3,930
Junior Suite with Grand Canal view £4,530
Deluxe Suite Grand Canal view £4,720
Classic double for single use £3,710
Deluxe double for single use £4,510
Arriving 2nd November, per person:
Deluxe double/twin £3,630
Junior Suite £3,680
Junior Suite with Grand Canal view £4,220
Deluxe Suite Grand Canal view £4,370
Classic double for single use £3,390
Deluxe double for single use £4,280
Hotel Europa & Regina, 5-star
Arriving 1st November, per person:
Deluxe double/twin £4,020; with Grand Canal view £4,580
Deluxe double for single use £4,480; with Grand Canal view £5,460
Arriving 2nd November, per person:
Deluxe double/twin £3,830; with Grand Canal view £4,290
Deluxe double for single use £4,290; with Grand Canal view £5,170
Hotel Luna Baglioni, 5-star
Arriving 1st November, per person:
Superior double/twin £4,260;
with a side canal view £4,400
Superior double for single use £4,780;
with a side canal view £5,060
Arriving 2nd November, per person:
Superior double/twin £4,060;
with a side canal view £4,170
Superior double for single use £4,580;
with a side canal view £4,830
Hotel Gritti Palace, 5-star
Arriving 1st November, per person:
Deluxe double/twin £4,980
Deluxe double/twin with Grand Canal view £6,240
Deluxe double for single use £5,840
Arriving 2nd November, per person:
Deluxe double/twin £4,680
Deluxe double/twin with Grand Canal view £5,660
Deluxe double for single use £5,540
Festival practicalities
Why November?
November is relatively low season in Venice. Fewer visitors and fewer cruise ships make it much easier to get around and to visit places for which queues or congestion are standard for much of the year.
Temperatures can be mild and blue skies can be expected at least for part of the time, though rain is likely. Important for the festival is that at this end of winter unheated buildings may retain a trace of their summer warmth.
However, November is the peak month for aqua alta, the rise in water levels in the canals is such that some streets and squares are inundated. This flooding is related to tides and therefore lasts only for a few hours, but we strongly recommend that you bring waterproof footwear such as full-length Wellington boots. Floods of two or three feet or more above street level are very rare. We have organised nearly fifty concerts in Venice, starting in 1999: none has been cancelled as a result of high water, though one of them had an audience of one, the only person who waded through waist-high water to get to the venue.
Independent or group travel?
For the independent traveller or a group tour? The answer is both. It’s up to you to choose the degree of independence you want.
If you are uneasy about travelling as part of a group, you can avoid the optional extras and participate in the festival merely by turning up to the concerts (we tell you where and when, and how to get there). The rest of the time is your own.
But if you prefer to have some guidance and assistance and opportunity for social interaction you can have group dinners every evening, sign up for some art-historical walks and visits and take advantage of any assistance offered for getting to the venues.
Though there will be up to 230 participants, you will frequently find yourself in much smaller units. Participants are spread through six hotels, and numbers at each restaurant and on the optional walks and visits are limited. Special attention will be paid by festival staff to participants travelling on their own.
Fitness for the festival
We must stress that it is essential to cope with the walking and stair-climbing required to get to the concerts and other events. The hotels we have chosen are situated in the San Marco district whereas the majority of the concert venues are on the other side of the Grand Canal in the San Polo and Dorsoduro districts. You should be able to walk unaided for at least thirty minutes and to be able to get on and off (sometimes pitching) water buses and motoscafi. Venice covers a large area, and there are the steps of numerous bridges to negotiate. Water taxis are not always an option, and festival staff will not have the resources to assist individuals with walking difficulties.
There is no age limit for this festival, but we do ask that prospective participants assess their fitness by trying some simple exercises described below.
Self-assessment tests. We ask that all participants take these quick and simple tests to ascertain whether they are fit enough:
1. Chair stands. Sit in a dining chair, with arms folded and hands on opposite shoulders. Stand up and sit down at least 8 times in 30 seconds.
2. Step test. Mark a wall at a height that is halfway between your knee and your hip bone. Raise each knee in turn to the mark at least 60 times in 2 minutes.
3. Agility test. Place an object 3 yards from the edge of a chair, sit, and record the time it takes to stand up, walk to the object and sit back down.
You should be able to do this in under 7 seconds.
Are you fit enough to join the tour?
The musicians
Academy of Ancient Music
For more than forty years, the Academy of Ancient Music has enriched the lives of thousands the world over with historically informed performances of Baroque and Classical music. Founded in 1973 by the late Christopher Hogwood, the orchestra has performed on all six inhabited continents and recorded an unrivalled catalogue of over 300 cds. Among them are many Brit-, Gramophone-, MIDEM- and Edison-award winning recordings.
One of the world’s great orchestras, they have energised performance of the early repertoire by focusing on the style and spirit in which this music was first performed and engaging players who are ‘the superstars of the period-instrument world’. Their excellence has long been fostered by a range of guest artists of the highest calibre.
They performed L’Orfeo in 2013, are touring Poppea in 2014–15 and plan to perform Ulisse in 2015–16. The AAM is Orchestra-in-Residence at the University of Cambridge and Associate Ensemble at the Barbican Centre in London.
Robert Howarth has played harpsichord with many of the leading period-instrument orchestras. Among the Monteverdi productions he has directed and conducted are Poppea with the Academy of Ancient Music, Ulisse for Opernhaus Zürich, Welsh National Opera, Birmingham Opera Company and English Touring Opera, the 1610 Vespers with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda for the Birmingham Opera Company.
I Fagiolini
Grounded in the classics of the Renaissance and twentieth-century vocal repertoire, I Fagiolini is renowned for its highly imaginative productions, passionate commitment to the music and sheer artistry. Among a wide variety of innovative projects, the ensemble has staged works by Handel, Purcell and Venetian composers, among others, and collaborated for How Like An Angel with Australian contemporary circus company Circa. Their now legendary The Full Monteverdi was a dramatised account of the composer’s Fourth Book of Madrigals.
I Fagiolini has given performances around the world from BBC Proms and the Lincoln Center Festival to the Far East and Africa. Unstaged highlights include the world première recording of Alessandro Striggio’s recently discovered Mass in Forty Parts (which formed the centrepiece of Martin Randall Travel’s Florence festival in 2012) and the 1612 Italian Vespers (Gramophone CD of the month). In spring 2015, I Fagiolini will première its latest music theatre project Betrayal: a polyphonic crime drama at the Barbican, the much-awaited follow-up to The Full Monteverdi.
Robert Hollingworth founded I Fagiolini in 1986. He has conducted various European professional choirs, led master classes throughout Europe and writes and presents for BBC Radio 3. He has worked on a number of films, arranges music, and is Anniversary Reader in Music at the University of York.
La Venexiana
La Venexiana, founded in 1996 by Claudio Cavina, is regarded as one of the most important groups for the Monteverdi repertoire, and takes its name from an anonymous Renaissance comedy which was a cardinal point of reference in Italian theatre for its use of language. La Venexiana aims to incorporate into its musical interpretations an attention to language in all its subtlety, and has established a new style in early Italian musical performance, making careful use of the original sources. The group has recorded all the Monteverdi madrigals and surviving operas, and its many other recordings have received awards, including the Diapason d’Or, Gramophone awards, and the Premio Amadeus.
La Venexiana have sung together at all the major venues and performed at the most important festivals throughout Europe and elsewhere. The members of the group are among the most experienced performers in the early music field. Their future plans include a tour of Japan and their debut in Moscow performing Monteverdi madrigals.
With his recordings of Monteverdi’s madrigals and operas, Claudio Cavina is one of the most highly regarded musicians in the field of early music. He is also one of the most important Italian countertenors of his generation: he began his vocal studies in Bologna and continued at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. He performs with many ensembles in addition to his regular and celebrated appearances with La Venexiana.
Odhecaton
Directed by Paolo Da Col, Odhecaton brings together some of the best Italian male voices specialising in the performance of Renaissance and Baroque music. Since their beginnings in 1998, they have pioneered a new approach to polyphonic music, a fluid and expressive reading based on textual declamation.
They have gained worldwide recognition through their performances and recordings, which have won many prizes – Diapason d’or de l’année, five other Diapasons, Choc (Le Monde de la Musique), Disco del mese (Amadeus and CD Classics) and CD of the Year (Goldberg).
The name of the group is taken from Harmonice Musices Odhecaton, the first printed book of polyphony, published in 1501 by Ottaviano Petrucci in Venice. Their repertoire includes Gombert, Isaac, Josquin, Peñalosa, Compère, Palestrina, Gesualdo and Monteverdi; they have recorded Monteverdi’s Missa In illo tempore, their contribution to this festival (Ricercar 2012).
Monteverdi String Band
For over a decade, the collective expertise of MSB’s members in repertoire, style and ornamentation has brought exhilaration to performances ranging from intimate madrigals to grand polychoral celebrations. As well as enjoying many fruitful collaborations with wind and vocal ensembles in the UK and abroad, they have established a reputation for innovative programming and virtuoso performance in repertoire from the exquisite diminutions of the turn of the 17th century to the brilliant ensemble sonatas of Biber and his contemporaries.
Musical director Oliver Webber studied in Wells, Cambridge, London and the Hague, laying the foundations for an eclectic and adventurous approach to historical performance. He has directed programmes ranging from seventeenth-century chamber music to the operas of Hasse with various European ensembles; he is the leader of Ludus Baroque (Edinburgh), and principal and guest leader with the Gabrieli Players, Early Opera Company, the London Handel Orchestra and the Taverner Consort.
La Compagnia del Madrigale
La Compagnia del Madrigale is the newest of today’s internationally-acclaimed madrigal ensembles. Founded in 2008 by a group of singers, some of whom had been working together for over 20 years, they have made several celebrated recordings.
Awards and accolades include a Gramophone Award in 2014 for Marenzio’s Primo Libro de’ Madrigali, and the Diapason d’Or (2013) for Gesualdo’s Sesto libro dei Madrigali. They have also recorded vocal music by Palestrina and Orazio Vecchi (Amfiparnaso), and have several Monteverdi recording projects planned.
They have performed at major festivals and in prestigious concert halls in several European countries and will come to London’s Wigmore Hall in 2016.
The speakers
Dr David Vickers. Author, journalist, broadcaster and lecturer, he works as a consultant for many international Baroque music organisations and teaches at the Royal Northern College of Music. He is co-editor of The Cambridge Handel Encyclopedia, is preparing new editions of several of Handel’s music dramas and is a critic for Gramophone and BBC Radio 3. He also writes essays for record labels including BIS, Chandos, Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, EMI and Harmonia Mundi.
Professor John Bryan. Professor of Music at the University of Huddersfield, and a member of the Rose Consort of Viols and of Musica Antiqua, with whom he has toured and recorded extensively. He is artistic adviser to York Early Music Festival and a regular contributor on BBC Radio 3. He has published articles on renaissance and early baroque music in journals such as Early Music and The Journal of Musicology, and is in demand as a tutor on courses such as Dartington International Summer School.
Travel advice
Before booking, please refer to the FCDO website to ensure you are happy with the travel advice for the destination(s) you are visiting.
