You can listen to the performance here:

 

NTR ZaterdagMatinee

 

NTR ZaterdagMatinee, 5 February 2022, 13.00 hours

La Cetra Barockorchester, Basel

Andrea Marcon – conductor

Kees Vlaardingerbroek – artistic director

Magdalena Kožená - mezzo-soprano (Merope)

Kangmin Justin Kim - countertenor (Epitide)

Carlo Vistoli - countertenor (Licisco)

Beth Taylor - mezzo-soprano (Argia)

Vasilisa Berzhanskaya - mezzo-soprano (Trasimede)

Emiliano Gonzalez Toro - tenor (Polifonte)

Rachele Raggiotti - mezzo-soprano (Anassandro)

 

 

For more details, see:

Andrea Marcon: Merope will win

The website article reads “after Vivaldi and Monteverdi, Andrea Marcon is just about the most successful musical export from the Veneto. He has been at home at ZaterdagMatinee for more than ten years.” It is touching, but shows the depth of the special relationship Andrea has with Holland and the ZaterdagMatinee in particular. Both are close to his heart together as is the collaboration with Kees Vlaardingerbroek of the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam.

“Andrea Marcon has conducted many a Vivaldi opera at the Matinee. Now he and his La Cetra return with Merope, the opera that his slightly younger contemporary Giacomelli wrote for the greatest cast members of his time [Farinelli and Caffarelli].”

For the artistic director Kees Vlaardingerbroek (himself a good friend of our project), “meeting Andrea was like a gift from heaven. He was making real music from Vivaldi’s scores. Finally, here was somebody who didn’t think that Vivaldi was nice but second rate, and didn't laugh at me when I said: for me Vivaldi is the Berlioz of the 18th century. His music is so full of fire and originality, but you really need somebody who can draw it out and bring it to life.”

La Merope touches on something we are very passionate about at the Teatro San Cassiano: the restoration of forgotten operas (and oratorio). As the production’s website rightly notes, “the mine of forgotten Baroque operas and oratorios is seemingly inexhaustible. Just the number of operas written for the Venetian theatres alone is mind-boggling. Marcon and Vlaardingerbroek have their work cut out for them. ‘Venice was a bit like Broadway in those days,’ says Vlaardingerbroek. ‘Sometimes you had as many as five or six operas running at the same time. The works we’re already familiar with are probably just the tip of the iceberg.’”   

The opera originally premiered in Venice at the Teatro San Giovanni Grisostomo, 1734.

 

Image credits: Andrea © Marco Borggreve; Andrea with La Cetra © Martin Chiang