Alexandre Baldo & l'Ensemble Mozaique - Porpora, Caldara, Smith, Handel, Vivaldi

Unusual Suspects Presumed guilty of the worst atrocities, bass roles of the eighteenth century prove more complex and sensitive than their often frightening appearance suggests.

Unusual Suspects

Presumed guilty of the worst atrocities, bass roles of the eighteenth century prove more complex and sensitive than their often frightening appearance suggests. A true gallery of portraits bringing together dragons, cyclopes, gods, kings, archangels and demons, this programme highlights the surprising range of emotions expressed by these mythical figures. It brings together virtuoso and expressive arias composed for the great basses of the period, such as Christoph Praun and Antonio Montagnana.

PROGRAMME

Nicola Antonio Porpora – Arianna in Nasso – Overture

Antonio Caldara – Il lamento d’Orfeo – Cantata

Antonio Caldara – Andromaca – Balletto dell’atto quinto

John Christopher Smith – The Paradise Lost – Aria “Thou henceforth art doom’d”

Georg Friedrich Händel – Acis and Galatea (1736 version) – Scena “Mi palpita il cor … Affanno tiranno”

INTERVAL

Antonio Vivaldi – Armida al campo d’Egitto – Overture

Antonio Vivaldi – Armida al campo d’Egitto – Aria “So, che combatte ancor”

Nicola Porpora – Arianna in Nasso – Aria “Più l’impresa perigli n’appresta”

Nicola Porpora – Deianira, Iole ed Ercole – Overture

Johann Mattheson – Die geheimen Begebenheiten Henrico IV. – Aria “Se’l primo amor”

Francesco Maria Veracini – Adriano in Siria – Aria “Non ritrova un’alma forte”

CAST

Alexandre Baldo, baritone-bass

Ensemble Mozaïque

Chloé de Guillebon, harpsichord and direction

Gabriele Toscani, violin

Pietro Battistoni, violin

Joanna Patrick-Taffs, viola

Celeste Casiraghi, cello

Elias Conrad, theorbo