THE BAROQUE FOR THE 41ST MONTEVERDI FESTIVAL

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by Opera Charm Team

June 14, 2024

The richest edition ever: more than thirty appointments and two new opera productions.

In Cremona from 14 to 23 June 2024.

The forty-first edition of the Monteverdi Festival kicks off tomorrow, with the celebrated international voices of sopranista Samuel Mariño, countertenor Nicolò Balducci, baritone Mauro Borgioni, sopranos Francesca Lombardi Mazzulli and Giulia Bolcato, and with the extraordinary participation of Cecilia Bartoli, the world’s best-known Italian opera singer, in one of her rare appearances in our country. Noteworthy is the Italian debut of French director Olivier Fredj, celebrated throughout Europe for his recent Bastarda at the Monnaie in Brussels, who signs the new direction of L’Orfeo, and the Festival debut of the young Roberto Catalano, who stages Monteverdi’s Polittico. There will also be great baroque specialist conductors such as Antonio Greco, Francesco Corti, Fabio Biondi, Giordano Antonelli, William Christie, Federico Maria Sardelli, and Gianluca Capuano at the helm of orchestras such as Il Pomo d’oro, Concerto de’ Cavalieri, Europa Galante, Musica Antiqua Latina, Les Arts Florissants, Modo Antiquo, Les Musiciens du Prince, and the Orchestra Monteverdi Festival – Cremona Antiqua.

The richest Monteverdi Festival edition ever kicks off in Cremona from 14 to 23 June.

Monteverdi father of opera. Italy boasts the paternity of countless inventions that have contributed to changing the social, civil, cultural, scientific and anthropological history of society. Cremona was, in some respects, one of its most vital centres. Music is the area of the boldest revolution in which the city has been a protagonist. Claudio Monteverdi was born here in 1567. A revolutionary and visionary genius, the courageous father of opera and melodrama, Monteverdi gave the birth to the theatrical and musical genre that, more than any other, has fascinated mankind for centuries and made Italy and the Italian language famous throughout the world, so much so that Unesco recently declared the practice of Italian opera singing an intangible heritage of humanity.

Over thirty appointments with opera productions, concerts, meetings, training residencies and crossover experiences between several performance languages. Two new Monteverdi opera productions: the Festival opens at the Teatro Ponchielli with L’Orfeo, the first masterpiece in the history of melodrama, with the musical direction of Francesco Corti, the stage direction of Olivier Fredj and in the cast the winners of the CMC – Cavalli Monteverdi Competition international baroque singing competition, and the Polittico Monteverdiano, a project celebrating the 400th anniversary of the first performance of Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, staging, for the first time in modern times, the madrigals in representative style, including the famous Combattimento, directed by Roberto Catalano. Conductor at the harpsichord Antonio Greco, who is also the Festival’s principal musical director.

There will be seven concerts, in the city’s most beautiful churches, theatres and historical palaces, with internationally renowned artists such as sopranista Samuel Mariño, who rereads Baroque masterpieces with the declared intention of spreading a message of universal freedom and acceptance; violinist Fabio Biondi, conducting his prestigious orchestra Europa Galante; as well as the renowned Modo Antiquo conducted by Federico Maria Sardelli and the Musica Antiqua Latina ensemble led by Giordano Antonelli. One of the most eagerly awaited appointments will be with Les Arts Florissants, the well-known ensemble founded and directed by William Christie. And there is also Voces Suaves, a vocal group from Basel that is among the most renowned in the Renaissance and Baroque repertoire.

There is also the Monteverdi Festival Orchestra – Cremona Antiqua, founded in 2021 as the Monteverdi Festival orchestra in residence and composed of the most active Italian and foreign musicians in this repertoire, led by Antonio Greco. But it is also a Festival of great surprises, such as the public meeting on Monteverdi with special guest John Eliot Gardiner and the closing gala featuring Gianluca Capuano conducting Les Musiciens du Prince with the extraordinary participation of Cecilia Bartoli, a world star of opera singing and one of the most refined artists of the Baroque repertoire, for the first time in Cremona.

Among the events that preceded the inauguration of the Festival was the highly successful Vespro della beata Vergine, a milestone in Monteverdi’s production, last May in the Church of San Marcellino. A tribute by the Festival to the city and the people of Cremona who guard the heritage of their most illustrious fellow-citizen. The protagonists are the Accademia Bizantina conducted by Ottavio Dantone and the Choir of the Centro di Musica Antica Ghislieri of Pavia.

For ten days Cremona will see in the city’s most symbolic places inclusive and original events such as “MonteverdiDappertutto”, which brings the music of the Divine Claudio to workers in companies and health facilities, “MonteverdiNight”, with nocturnal musical proposals in a combination of dance, music, improvisation and theatre. There will also be workshops dedicated to young people thanks to the “MonteverdiAcademy” ancient music residency.

The Monteverdi Festival, where tradition and innovation have always coexisted, projecting our musical heritage into the future, is now in its forty-first edition to celebrate Monteverdi, his opera, his extraordinary music, his legacy, his Cremona: capital of the entire Baroque music scene and cradle of opera singing. Where everything was born and everything is reborn.

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Alice Lechner

Alice Lechner comes from a music-loving family. Her first encounter with the opera universe was at the tender age of six. The grandeur of the stage productions and costumes, the backstage chatter, and last, but definitely not least, the music left her in awe, beginning with Mozart’s Don Giovanni. The overall feeling that opera awakens in anyone who gets a glimpse into this part of artistic eternity, that each and every day passes the test of time, was what drew her to stay and be a part of this world. The Opera House of Brașov became her second home, and the people who worked there were her second family.

Since then, Alice has devoted her spare time to maximising her musical knowledge through instrumental studies, studying both piano and violin for a short time. In the following years, her number one passion stepped out of the limelight and graciously gave way to Law Studies.
Since 2018 she has been studying Law at “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University in Iași.

Her passion for opera, even if it is no longer her top professional priority in terms of career, it has most definitely become her priority during her free time. Wanting to experience the best of both worlds and extend her musical horizons, she regularly attends opera performances throughout Romania and abroad.
With OPERA Charm Magazine, Alice aims to nurture her creative side to help it flourish and bloom and to discover, alongside the magazine’s readers, the fascinatingly complex world of opera.

Currently, she is an LL.M. in Business Law at “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University in Iași.

Oana Zamfir

Oana Zamfir is a second year MA student at the “George Enescu” National University of Arts, at the Department of Musicology.

She studied violin for 12 years at the “Stefan Luchian” High School of Art in Botosani, later focusing on the theoretical aspects of music. In 2019 she completed her bachelor studies in Musicology as a student of the National Academy of Music “Gheorghe Dima” in Cluj-Napoca. Her research during 2018-2019 brought to the forefront elements of the archaic ritual within works of composers who activated during the communist period, giving her the opportunity to start a research internship at the “Carl von Ossietzky” University in Germany. In this context, she recorded conversations with members of the Sophie Drinker Institute in Bremen, and had access to documents directly from the Myriam Marbé archive.

Since 2019 she has been a teacher of Music Education and Theoretical Music Studies, making full use of interactive methods in the musical training of students and working, at the same time, with the children’s choir founded in the first year of her activity.

Her interests include pursuing a degree in interior design in 2020.

Alexandru Suciu

Alexandru Suciu inherited his passion for art growing up in a family of several generations of musicians. He began his musical studies at the “Augustin Bena” School of Music in Cluj, where he studied piano and guitar. Even though his main study direction was philological, his passion for music prevailed. He began his academical journey at the Faculty of Letters of the “Babeș-Bolyai” University, studying Comparative literature and English. He continued by studying Opera Singing at the “Gheorghe Dima” National Music Academy. He also graduated the Musical Education section, followed by Artistic Directing at the Musical Performing Arts department.

His multidisciplinary education opened the doors towards research, which is seen both through his participation in national and international conferences and symposia, such as the Salzburg Easter School PhD-forum, organized by the Salzburg Universität or the Silesian Meeting of Young Scholars, organized by the Institute of English at the University of Silesia, as well as the collaboration with Opera Charm Magazine.

During his student years, he won several prizes, including the Grand Prize at the “Paul Constantinescu” National Musical Interpretation Competition, the Romanian Composers and Musicologists’ Union Prize at the same competition, the First Prize and the Schubert Prize at the “Ada Ulubeanu” Competition.

He further developed his artistic skills by specializing in courses and masterclasses held by personalities such as Vittorio Terranova, Giuseppe Sabbatini, Marian Pop, Ines Salazar, Riccardo Zanellato, Paolo Bosisio, Valentina Farcaș and Manuel Lange in contexts such as the Internationale Sommerakademie für Operngesang Deutschlandsberg, Corso Internazionale di Canto Lirico I.M.C. Licata or the Europäische Akademie für Musik und darstellende Kunst Montepulciano. Besides his activity on-stage, he currently teaches Opera Singing Didactics, and Pedagogical Practice within the Department for Teacher Education and Training at the “Gheorghe Dima” National Music Academy.

Cristina Fieraru

Cristina is a 24 year-old Romanian soprano & a student at the National University of Music Bucharest, where she pursues the MA program in Vocal Performance.

She made her debut in Pamina from “Die Zauberflöte” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart at only 19 years old at the Bucharest National Opera House, as a member of the Ludovic Spiess Experimental Opera Studio. Over the years she made her debut in roles such as Contessa d’Almaviva (Le nozze di Figaro), Mimì & Musetta (La Bohème), Alice Ford (Falstaff), Erste Dame (Die Zauberflöte) in her university’s opera productions.
Her passion and experience extends in the field of choral music, too.

She has been part of our dream team since the fall of 2021. For a good period of time she took care of OPERA Charm’s social media and took you on the monthly journey through the history of opera through our Legends rubric – and a few times through the Theaters around the World rubric.

Her little soul rubric – from 2021 to present – is definitely the Conductors of the Future, where, every month, she gives you the chance to meet a young star of the world of conducting and, of course, to find out what’s the most charming feature of opera in these artists’ views.

BIANCA L. NICA

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