Carlo Vistoli @ Bayreuth Baroque 2025

Les Indes Galantes (The amorous indies), is an opera-ballet created by Jean Philippe Rameau in 1735. He was inspired for one of the dance by tribal Indian dances of Louisiana performed by Metchigaema chiefs, in Paris in 1723. Clément Cogitore adapts a short part of the ballet by mobilizing a group of Krump dancers, an art form born in Los Angeles black ghetto in the 1990s. Its birth occurred in the aftermath of the beating up of Rodney King and the riots, as well as police repression it triggered. Amidst this coercive atmosphere, young dancers started to embody the violent tensions of the physical, social and political body. Both the tribal dance performed in Paris in 1723, and the rebelious Krump dancers of the 1990s shape a reenactment of Rameau’s original libretto, staging young people dancing on the verge of a volcano.

On Thursday 2 May 2019, the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists, led by John Eliot Gardiner, brought a new production of Semele to “London’s oldest new theatre” at Alexandra Palace. This concert-staging of “Handel’s sexiest opera”, directed by Thomas Guthrie, was the only London date on a prestigious European tour. Featuring a young, glamorous cast of international soloists, the performance provided London audiences with a fuller version of the work, notably with some passages by Handel very rarely heard in modern performances.

For his first appearance in the pit in Paris with his Artaserse ensemble, Philippe Jaroussky has chosen a masterpiece that he knows well, having sung the role of Sesto on numerous occasions, notably in the highly acclaimed Salzburg production alongside Cecilia Bartoli. As for the staging, we will welcome for the first time on Avenue Montaigne a Venetian who is used to the greatest European stages and who has undertaken his first Handel, Alcina, in the summer of 2019 in Salzburg with Ruggiero... Philippe Jaroussky. Everyone agrees on his ability to imagine delicate and highly effective dramaturgical worlds (his Barber of Seville for the Paris Opera is an irresistible visual translation of Rossini's frenzied score). His debut in opera seria with Alcina also showed his intelligence in giving coherence and emotion to the demanding arias da capo. On stage, a team familiar with the Théàtre des Champs-Elysées and this repertoire, led by a very fine trio of French women.

For years, *The Magic Flute* has been one of the most frequently performed operas at the Aix-en-Provence Festival. After an eight-year absence, Mozart’s work is now back on the programme. Clément Cogitore interprets the plot as a modern coming-of-age story: Tamino and Pamina leave the world of childhood behind and enter a reality in which beauty is fragile and truth is uncertain.

After the fall of Troy, King Idomeneo can finally think about returning to his homeland of Crete. During his long absence, his son Idamantes took care of the affairs of government and the Troyan prisoners of war, including Ilia, the daughter of King Priam. In order to get out alive from the storm that prevents him from landing in Crete, he promises to sacrifice the first living creature he encounters on his home soil to the sea god Poseidon. Unfortunately, this is his son who rushes to greet him. By sacrificing her life for Idamante's, whom she loves and who reciprocates her love, Ilia manages to appease Poseidon and release Idomeneo from his fateful oath. Production of the Grand Theatre de Geneve, 2024.

Francesco Cavalli's incandescent opera, where tragedy rubs shoulders with comedy, and burlesque alternates with deep emotion. Max Emanuel Cenčić directs a lively production, drawing on the codes of commedia dell'arte. This game of love and chance combines passion, betrayal, and power struggles. The countertenor takes on the title role, while Leonardo García Alarcón conducts the Cappella Mediterranea.

The Greek army is gathered at Aulis, ready to sail for Troy, but the winds fail. The seer Calchas reveals that the goddess Artemis is angry and demands a sacrifice. King Agamemnon’s daughter, Ifigenia, must die for the fleet to depart. Torn between duty to Greece and love for his daughter, Agamemnon initially uses a ruse to bring Ifigenia to Aulis; he claims she is to marry Achilles. When Ifigenia and her mother Clitennestra arrive and learn the truth, they are devastated. What hero might intervene to save Ifigenia from the altar of sacrifice?

Michele Mariotti conducts Gioachino Rossini’s *Tancredi* for the first time. Carlo Vistoli takes on the title role. Joining him on stage are Martina Russomanno, Antonino Siragusa, and Luca Tittoto. Directed by Emma Dante, with set design by Carmine Maringola. The Orchestra and Chorus of the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma.

From the Rai Arturo Toscanini Auditorium in Turin, the Rai National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Giuseppe Mengoli, performs Arvo Pärt’s *Fratres*, Antonio Vivaldi’s *Stabat Mater* (featuring countertenor Carlo Vistoli), and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92.

In March 2024, to mark the 300th anniversary of Johann Sebastian Bach's St John Passion, premiered in Leipzig in 1724, Berlin-born Sasha Waltz presented a movingly intense choreographed version on the stage of the Opéra de Dijon.

2016 marks the 500th anniversary of the death of Hieronymus Bosch. It is almost the only information about the artist of The Garden of Earthly Delights that we can put a precise date to. Bosch, the garden of dreams is a film about his most important painting and one of the most iconic paintings in the world: The Garden of Earthly Delights.

Systematically overturning accepted morals, Elagabalus dresses men as women, and names women to the Senate, favours sinning servants and humiliates generals. Baroque and carnivalesque, Eliogabalo is not, however, an opera that advocates a return to order. Leonardo García Alarcón, a finder of baroque gems, and Thomas Jolly are careful not to transform Eliogabalo into a sublime icon who would abase virtue. On the contrary, the conductor and young director, who are presenting their first production for the Paris Opera, accept the character’s contradictions and ambiguities

A ruthless dictator falls in love with a sexy woman. Together, they get rid of every obstacle in their way: his wife, her former lover, and also the voice of reason. Everything is sacrificed to passion, in this tale where evil triumphs, virtue and reason are humiliated, and nothing corresponds to our moral principles. Jan Lauwers, the director and choreographer, sets L'incoronazione di Poppea in a way congenial to his means: a visual artist, he translated the emotions expressed by Monteverdi’s music into dancing and visual images. The result was mixed; the general impression was one of many ideas, seemingly not fully developed or analysed. The stage was constantly cluttered with moving bodies, or tableau vivants, leaving a sense of confusion, and distracting from the music.