Boston Early Music Festival 2021–2022 Season: BEMF Chamber Opera Series

2021-2022 Season BEMF C ha mber O p e r a Se r i es Paul O’Dette & Stephen Stubbs, Musical Directors Gilbert Blin & Marie-Nathalie Lacoursière, Stage Directors Robert Mealy, Concertmaster Melinda Sullivan, Dance Director

Saturday, November 27, 2021 Sunday, November 28, 2021 New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall

BEM F.or g

International Baroque Opera • Celebrated Concerts • World-Famous Exhibition

C AR L PH I L I PP E M A N UE L BAC H

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“I find the Carlophilipemanuelbachomania grow upon me so, that almost every thing else is insipid to me.”

— Thomas Twining, letter to Charles Burney, 

Published by The Packard Humanities Institute cpebach.org

Welcome Dear Friends, We are delighted to welcome you to what is now firmly established as a beloved Thanksgiving weekend tradition in Boston. Since 2008, BEMF’s annual operatic productions, presented in the intimate setting of NEC’s Jordan Hall, have taken the acclaimed musical and artistic values embodied in our fully staged Festival operas and focused them on small-scale staged works and performances of opera-in-concert, bringing to life rarely heard gems and beloved masterpieces alike.

For our all-new 2021 Chamber Opera Series presentation this weekend, we have selected a refreshing pairing of comedy and drama that features two works by Telemann: Pimpinone, a captivating trio of comic intermezzi from 1725 that draws from the same wellspring of inspiration later tapped by Pergolesi, and the dramatic cantata Ino, a stunning and intense work written four decades later, based on a story drawn from Ovid’s Metamorphoses.

Musical Directors Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs and Stage Directors Gilbert Blin and Marie-Nathalie Lacoursière lead three of BEMF’s favorite singers, Amanda Forsythe, Danielle Reutter-Harrah, and Douglas Williams, and the all-star BEMF Chamber Ensemble with concertmaster Robert Mealy, in this engaging double bill.

We hope you enjoy this weekend’s performances—in person or in a later virtual viewing—and we hope to see you on Friday evening, December 10, at St. Paul Church in Cambridge, when we welcome Peter Phillips and the magnificent Tallis Scholars for their 33rd consecutive annual appearance with BEMF, in a program celebrating the 500th anniversary of the death of Josquin, which will also be made available for online viewing later in December.

Thank you for making BEMF opera a part of your holiday weekend, and our heartfelt thanks for your support of and dedication to the Boston Early Music Festival.

Kathleen Fay Executive Director

TA B LE OF C O N T E N T S

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Concert Program Synopsis Program Essays Artist Profiles About BEMF Friends of BEMF

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Boson Early Music Fesival Man ag eme n t Kathleen Fay, Executive Director Carla Chrisfield, General Manager Maria van Kalken, Assistant to the Executive Director Brian Stuart, Director of Marketing and Publicity Elizabeth Hardy, Marketing and Development Associate & Exhibition Manager Perry Emerson, Operations Manager Corey King, Box Office and Patron Services Manager Andrew Sigel, Publications Editor Nina Stern, Director of Community Engagement

Ar t ist ic Lead er ship Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs, Artistic Directors Gilbert Blin, Opera Director Robert Mealy, Orchestra Director Melinda Sullivan, Lucy Graham Dance Director

B oar d of Dir ec t or s Bernice K. Chen, Chairman | David Halstead, President Brit d’Arbeloff, Vice President | Lois A. Lampson, Vice President Susan L. Robinson, Vice President Adrian C. Touw, Treasurer | Peter L. Faber, Clerk Michael Ellmann | George L. Hardman | Glenn A. KnicKrehm | Miles Morgan Bettina A. Norton | Lee S. Ridgway | Ganesh Sundaram

B oar d of O ver seer s Diane Britton | Gregory E. Bulger | Robert E. Kulp, Jr. | James S. Nicolson Amanda Pond | Robert Strassler | Donald E. Vaughan

B oar d of Tr ust ees Marty Gottron & John Felton, Co-Chairs Mary Briggs | Deborah Ferro Burke | Mary Deissler | James A. Glazier Edward B. Kellogg | John Krzywicki | Douglas M. Robbe | Jacob Skowronek

B oS ton E a rly M u s ic Fest iva l , In c .

43 Thorndike Street, Suite 302, Cambridge, MA 02141-1764 Telephone: 617-661-1812 | Email: bemf@bemf.org | BEMF.org

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M ember s of t he B E M F Cor p oration Jon Aaron Debra K.S. Anderson Kathryn Bertelli Mary Briggs Diane Britton Douglas M. Brooks Gregory E. Bulger Julian G. Bullitt Deborah Ferro Burke John A. Carey Anne P. Chalmers Bernice K. Chen Joel I. Cohen David Cook† Brit d’Arbeloff Vivian Day Mary Deissler Peter L. DeWolf JoAnne W. Dickinson Richard J. Dix Alan Durfee Michael Ellmann Peter L. Faber Emily C. Farnsworth Dorothy R. Fay Kathleen Fay John Felton Frances C. Fitch Claire Fontijn Randolph J. Fuller James A. Glazier Marty Gottron Carol A. Haber David Halstead

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George L. Hardman Ellen T. Harris Richard Hester Jessica Honigberg Jennifer Ritvo Hughes Edward B. Kellogg Thomas F. Kelly Glenn A. KnicKrehm Christine Kodis John Krzywicki Kathryn Kucharski Robert E. Kulp, Jr. Ellen Kushner Christopher Laconi Lois A. Lampson Thomas G. MacCracken William Magretta Bill McJohn Miles Morgan Nancy Netzer Amy H. Nicholls James S. Nicolson Bettina A. Norton Scott Offen Lorna E. Oleck Henry P.M. Paap James M. Perrin Bici Pettit-Barron Amanda Pond Melvyn Pond Paul Rabin Christa Rakich Lee S. Ridgway Michael Rigsby

Douglas M. Robbe Michael Robbins Susan L. Robinson Patsy Rogers Wendy Rolfe-Dunham Loretto Roney Thomas Roney Ellen Rosand Valerie Sarles F. Williams Sarles† David W. Scudder Andrew Sigel Jacob Skowronek Arlene Snyder Jon Solins Robert Strassler Ganesh Sundaram Adrian C. Touw Peggy Ueda Donald E. Vaughan Ingeborg von Huene Nikolaus von Huene Howard J. Wagner Benjamin D. Weiss Ruth S. Westheimer Allan Winkler Hal Winslow Christoph Wolff Arnold B. Zetcher Ellen Zetcher † deceased

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Boson Early Music Fesival 2021 Chamber Opera Series Named Gift Sponsorships Boston Early Music Festival extends sincere thanks to the following individuals and institutions for their leadership support of Telemann’s Pimpinone and Ino:

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Glenn A. KnicKrehm and Constellation Center Partial Production Sponsors

Katie and Paul Buttenwieser Partial Production Sponsors

Lorna E. Oleck Sponsor of Robert Mealy, Concertmaster, Marie-Nathalie Lacoursière, Stage Co-Director, Laura Jeppesen, viola, and the Pre-Opera Video

Andrew Sigel Sponsor of Danielle Reutter-Harrah, Vespetta, and Amanda Forsythe, Ino

George L. Hardman Sponsor of Todd Williams and Nathanael Udell, natural horn

Bernice K. Chen Sponsor of Gilbert Blin, Stage Co-Director and Costume Co-Designer

John Felton and Marty Gottron Sponsors of Paul O’Dette, Artistic Co-Director

David Halstead and Jay Santos Sponsors of Stephen Stubbs, Artistic Co-Director

Susan L. Robinson Sponsor of Melinda Sullivan, Dance Director

Donald E. Vaughan and Lee S. Ridgway Sponsors of Douglas Williams, Pimpinone

Two Admirers Sponsors of Michael Sponseller, harpsichord 6

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Boson Early Music Fesival

C h a mbe r O p e ra S e ries Presents

Music composed by Georg Philipp Telemann (1681–1767) Pimpinone libretto by Johann Philipp Praetorius (1696–1766) after Pietro Pariati (1665–1733) Ino text by Karl Wilhelm Ramler (1725–1798) Saturday, November 27, 2021 at 8pm Sunday, November 28, 2021 at 3pm New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall, 30 Gainsborough Street, Boston Saturday, December 11, 2021 at 8pm Virtual Premiere, BEMF.org

Paul O’Dette & Stephen Stubbs, Musical Directors Gilbert Blin & Marie-Nathalie Lacoursière, Stage Directors Robert Mealy, Concertmaster Melinda Sullivan, Dance Director Gilbert Blin & Meriem Bahri, Costume Designers Aja M. Jackson, Lighting Designer Kathleen Fay, Executive Producer

C a st Pimpinone Vespetta Danielle Reutter-Harrah Pimpinone Douglas Williams Arlecchino Marie-Nathalie Lacoursière Ino Ino Amanda Forsythe Arlecchino Marie-Nathalie Lacoursière 2 021–20 22 Seaso n

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Or de r of P r esentat i on Pimpinone: Intermezzo I Ino: Part I Pimpinone: Intermezzo II Ino: Part II Pimpinone: Intermezzo III This performance will not have an intermission.

B oston E a rly M u si c F est i val Vocal E nsemble Amanda Forsythe, soprano Danielle Reutter-Harrah, soprano Douglas Williams, bass-baritone

Boston E a rly M u si c F est i val C hambe r Ensemble Robert Mealy, Sarah Darling & Jesse Irons, violin I Cynthia Roberts & Emily Dahl Irons, violin II Laura Jeppesen, viola Phoebe Carrai, violoncello Doug Balliett, double bass Emi Ferguson & Andrea LeBlanc, flute Todd Williams & Nathanael Udell, natural horn Michael Sponseller, harpsichord Paul O’Dette, archlute Stephen Stubbs, theorbo & Baroque guitar

Boston E arly Mu s i c F est iva l Da nce C ompa ny Marie-Nathalie Lacoursière, dancer

Double-manual German harpsichord by Allan Winkler, Medford, Massachusetts, 1989, after Fleischer, property of the Boston Early Music Festival

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T ec h n i c a l Cr ew a nd Su p p ort Sta ff Mercedes Roman-Manson, Production Manager Kelly Martin, Lighting Director Perry Emerson & Elizabeth Hardy, Company Managers Maria van Kalken, Assistant to the Executive Producer Carmen Catherine Alfaro, Production Stage Manager Martha Keslar, Assistant Stage Manager Rachel Padula-Shufelt, Wigs and Makeup Designer Seth Bodie, Wigs and Make-up Supervisor Niko Cohen, Head Dresser/Stitcher Gabriel Bagdazian, Dresser Ian Thorsell, Props Supervisor and Artisan Dan McGaha, Supertitles Supervisor and Operator Ricardo Roman, Production Transportation Sophia Baramidze, Emily Keebler & Cami Wright, Stitchers Caitlin Laird & David Mather, Interns, Assistants to Gilbert Blin Ball Square Films & Kathy Wittman, Video Production & Photography Stephanie Rogers & Antonio Oliart Ros, Recording Engineers

The Boston Early Music Festival wishes to thank the following organizations and individuals for their assistance with this production: Robert Mealy, BEMF Orchestra Director for his editions of Pimpinone and Ino The administration, faculty, and staff at Longy School of Music of Bard College, especially Karen Zorn, President Dr. Ian Saunders, Assistant Dean for Artistic and Social Change Programs Jeremy Van Buskirk, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs for their roles in our ongoing partnership Gilbert Blin, BEMF Opera Director Melinda Sullivan, BEMF Dance Director Ellen T. Harris, Professor Emeritus at MIT in Music and Theater Arts for their Lectures/Demonstrations offered to the students of Longy BEMF staff members Carla Chrisfield, Perry Emerson, Elizabeth Hardy, and Maria van Kalken for their meticulous caretaking of our Pimpinone and Ino Company, Brian Stuart for his tasteful design of this program and all promotional materials, and Corey King for her thoughtful commitment to safe and responsible distanced seating for our patrons Andrew Sigel, for his careful attention to detail as editor of our publications including the material contained in this program book The Staff at New England Conservatory of Music, especially Peter Charig, Director of Business Relations and Event Management Bob Winters, Director of Performance Production Services for their support and technical assistance 2 0 21–20 22 Seaso n

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Boson Early Music Fesival

Paul O’Dette & Stephen Stubbs, Artistic Directors

n STREAMING NOW

available to watch until December 9, 2021 Available to Purchase Through December 8, 2021

Piffaro

Joan Kimball & Bob Wiemken, Artistic Directors Point/Counterpoint: Fuguing in Renaissance Music n Tuesday, December 7, 2021 7PM | Streaming for Free at Idagio NEWLY ADDED—Learn more at BEMF.org

Boston Early Music Festival Vocal & Chamber Ensembles Paul O’Dette & Stephen Stubbs, Musical Directors Robert Mealy, Concertmaster

Amanda Forsythe, soprano Aaron Sheehan, tenor Danielle Reutter-Harrah, soprano Jesse Blumberg, baritone Teresa Wakim, soprano Douglas Williams, bass-baritone Nathan Medley, countertenor Baroque Christmas: Music of Stradella and Corelli In collaboration with GBH

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n Friday, December 10, 2021

8pm | St. Paul Church, Cambridge

THE TALLIS SCHOLARS Peter Phillips, director

Josquin 500: Music of Josquin, Palestrina, and Byrd n Friday, February 18, 2022 8pm | St. Paul Church, Cambridge

Stile Antico Toward the Dawn: A musical journey from evening to sunrise

n Friday, February 25, 2022

8pm | St. Paul Church, Cambridge

Jordi Savall, director & Le Concert des Nations Les Fêtes Royales in Baroque Versailles n Saturday, March 26, 2022 8pm | First Church in Cambridge, Congregational

Juilliard415 & Royal Early Music Paul Agnew, director

C. P. E. Bach: Die Israeliten in der Wüste n Saturday, April 2, 2022 8pm | NEC’s Jordan Hall, Boston

Carolyn Sampson, soprano & Kristian Bezuidenhout, fortepiano Songs of Parting: Music by Mozart, Haydn, and others n Saturday, April 29, 2022 8pm | St. Paul Church, Cambridge

Ensemble Correspondances Sébastien Daucé, director

Septem Verba & Membra Jesu Nostri: Music of Buxtehude and Schütz 2 021–20 22 Seaso n

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Boson Early Music Fesival 2 0 2 1 – 2 02 2 N a med G if t S pon sor sh ips Boston Early Music Festival extends sincere thanks to the following individuals for their leadership support of our 2021–2022 Season:

o David Halstead and Jay Santos

Sponsors of the October 2021 performance by the BEMF Vocal & Chamber Ensembles

David M. Kozak and Anne Pistell

Sponsors of the December 2021 performance by The Tallis Scholars

Susan L. Robinson

Sponsor of the March 2022 performance by Juilliard415 & Royal Early Music

Joan Margot Smith

Sponsor of the April 2022 performance by Carolyn Sampson, soprano, and Kristian Bezuidenhout, fortepiano

George L. Hardman

Sponsor of the restoration of BEMF’s 5-octave fortepiano

by Robert Smith, Boston, 1984

Annemarie Altman

Sponsor of Kristian Bezuidenhout, fortepiano, for his April 2022 performance with soprano Carolyn Sampson, in memory of Dave Cook

Amanda and Melvyn Pond

Partial Sponsors of Nina Stern, Director of Community Engagement, and the Engaging Communities program

o You can help make this list grow. For more information about investing in BEMF performances with a Named Gift, please email Kathleen Fay at kathy@bemf.org, or call the BEMF office at 617-661-1812. Your support makes a difference. Thank you.

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Sy nopsis leaps from a cliff into the sea with her son in Pimpinone I her arms. Although the waves gently welcome Vespetta, a clever, diligent but poor woman, Ino, she realizes that she has lost Melicertes is seeking a position as chambermaid. She during her fall. Devastated, she implores the honestly admits that she is in fact looking for gods of the sea to return her son to her. To her a dowry from her future employer, so she can astonishment and gratitude, Melicertes appears get married as a way out of her poverty. She atop the waves, lifted up by spots a wealthy, potentially the tritons and nereids. suitable master: Pimpinone.

Entranced by her rare Pimpinone II combination of charm and Vespetta, now in Pimpinone’s modesty, the bachelor tries service, has established to find out if Vespetta is herself as an excellent and available to take care of his irreplaceable housekeeper. household. Vespetta uses She begins the next steps in this conversation to make her marriage plan. Claiming it clear that, as her previous that her sense of frugality master was a brute, she is hurt by his unwise now longs to work for a spending, she threatens to polite, wise, well-mannered, leave Pimpinone’s employ. handsome, and gentle man, Penitent, Pimpinone gives like… Pimpinone. This her the keys to the house’s compliment causes the bachelor’s head to spin, and Georg Philipp Telemann safe and to pacify her, the Engraving by Valentin Daniel Preisler, 1750 rich bachelor presents her although aware that she is with valuable jewels as a trying to manipulate him, token of his love. Vespetta still claims that she he is already smitten. Vespetta succeeds, by must leave because neighbors are chattering flattery and promises of exemplary behavior, in about the nature of their relationship. To stop obtaining the position. Pimpinone rejoices in his the gossip, Pimpinone offers to marry her under apparent good fortune. But Vespetta, feigning the condition that Vespetta would stay away humility and respect, mocks him behind his from the opera, masquerades, and gambling… back as they enter Pimpinone’s house. in short, that she should refrain from high living. Vespetta readily agrees to stay home, Ino I but points out that without a dowry, her status Queen Ino is fleeing her husband, King will still be that of a chambermaid. Pimpinone, Athamas, who has been driven insane by the eager to keep such a domestic pearl, offers an vengeful Saturnia, also called Juno, the queen incredibly high dowry, but he requires that of the gods. (The goddess was furious that Ino she should not leave the house and should had reared Bacchus, the child of Juno’s husband not accept any visitors after the wedding Jupiter and Ino’s sister Semele.) Athamas has celebration. Vespetta accepts these conditions already killed his and Ino’s first-born son; and Pimpinone is in bliss contemplating their she desperately tries to save Melicertes, their wedded future. With her dowry in hand, other son, carrying him over a rocky and Vespetta marries Pimpinone. inhospitable seacoast and expressing outrage at the injustice of Saturnia’s wrath. Ino presses Ino II on, trying to find a refuge, but she knows that Ino and Melicertes are reunited. The gods of Athamas is in close pursuit. To escape him, Ino 2 021–20 22 Seaso n

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the sea accept both mother and son in their midst, elevating them to immortals. Their apotheosis as the goddess Leucothea and the god Palaemon are celebrated by trumpeting tritons and dancing nereids. Ino sees Neptune, monarch of the watery realms, appearing in his triumphant chariot, and she vows to thank him perpetually by her eternal presence as white foam on the waves.

Pimpinone III Having become the mistress of the house, Vespetta has no intention of keeping her promises and frequently goes out. She is now preparing to attend a masked ball at her godmother’s house. This concerns Pimpinone, and he worries that the ladies there will make fun of him. When he reminds her of her vows of obedience, Vespetta laughs at her husband

and claims her freedom as a married woman.

Moreover, when Pimpinone also recalls her promise not to leave the house, she points out that she was then a maid, but now she is his wife. She tells of her desire to be just like all the other fashionable ladies by speaking French, dancing, dressing up in expensive clothes, and gambling. Overwhelmed, Pimpinone threatens her with physical punishment, but Vespetta promises to respond in kind.

They insult each other and hurl promises of mayhem. Vespetta cows Pimpinone and reminds him that if they separated, he would have to give her control over her substantial dowry. Pimpinone, having fallen in love with his little wasp, ultimately agrees that going forward he will remain silent. n —Gilbert Blin

PRO GRAM E SSAY S M a rri age for Comic E ffect “Everything that has been written by men about women must be suspect, for they are both judge and party.”

Poulain de la Barre in L’Egalité des deux sexes, 1673.

The plots and characteristic situations of the intermezzi make any production a continuous variation on the same theme. The intrigues are built mainly around stereotypes regarding women: their cunning nature, their obvious inconstancy, their congenital duplicity.

What amuses us—or leaves us perplexed and irritates us in these scenes—was different for an audience in the eighteenth century, when these works were a great success. Humor based on sexism (misogyny, homophobia, transphobia), with hints of xenophobia, ageism, etc., is always in the background, if not center stage.

What amused people then may be exasperating today, but not always, not necessarily.

The real difficulty is to distinguish which comic effects remain enduring, tenacious, 14

inextinguishable, and which ones are faded, or have completely expired. The humor may be hidden in a detail or need explanation because of an unfamiliar historical context.

Amusement may also depend on whether one enjoys the mockery and identifies with the satirist or sympathizes with the mocked. It is these layers of meaning that the dramaturgy must untie to prepare the new building which is the performance.

For Pimpinone, it seemed necessary to conduct a global reflection. This critical approach is what I am attempting here, based on a reading of the libretto. This attempt to “understand” the texts by constantly keeping in mind what the original intentions were, is also to determine whether those intentions are still dynamic today: generating comedy and carrying meaning.

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Hamburg

“Hambourg Ville Impériale d’Allemagne très fameux port de mer ...”

(Hamburg, Imperial town of Germany, very famous sea harbor…)

French etching by Charles Inselin (b. ca. 1673), Paris 1694, from Nicolas de Fer (1646–1720), Atlas Royal, Paris 1705.

Collection of Gilbert Blin.

Comic elements were present in the Italian operas of the seventeenth century but were gradually banished from the main plot.

However, comedy did not disappear entirely from the stage—comic interludes were inserted between the acts of an opera seria, a musical drama with a serious subject. The audience, and the singers who specialized in the comical genre, continued to demand comedy, and the compromise was the birth of the comic intermezzo, which was performed during the intermissions of the opera seria. Offering a welcome break after the circumvolutions of the solemn drama, their simple humorous plots did not require the same kind of attention from the audience. With intermezzos, the long theatrical spectacle could be continued without intermission, involving other performers. The modest heroes of the comic intermezzo sprang from the masked performers of the Italian commedia dell’arte, a type of comedy that was performed with a strict, and at the same time very imaginative, code of acting. The artistry of the burlesque expressions, both dramatic and musical, made up for the psychological constancy of these familiar stock characters, modeled on the pert maid Colombina, the old Pantalone, the pedantic Dottore, the resourceful servant Arlecchino, etc. The spectacle was vivid and light and most of the plots were based on contemporary life.

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Like many other intermezzos, Pimpinone is rooted in the Italian tradition of comedy.

Pimpinone, a “Lustiges Zwischenspiel” (comic intermezzo) by the German composer Georg Philipp Telemann (1681–1767) was first performed at the Hamburg Opera in September 1725. Pimpinone offered light relief between the acts of Telemann’s adaptation of Handel’s opera seria Tamerlano. The bilingual libretto of Pimpinone, with recitatives in German

by Johann Philipp Praetorius (1696–1766), the new librettist in residence at the Oper am Gänsemarkt, and most of the arias and duets in Italian, reflects a common practice in Hamburg. It was not confined to comic opera.

The Italian libretto for Tamerlano was adapted in the same way by Praetorius: he gave Handel’s opera German recitatives, likely composed by Telemann himself, while retaining the original Italian arias written by Handel. The plot of Pimpinone comes from the “intermezzo comico musicale” composed by Tomaso Albinoni for Venice on a libretto by Pietro Pariati from 1708. Telemann’s version has retained most of the original text, while adding some recitatives, arias, and duos. Pimpinone was an immediate success in 1725 thanks to the humorous story of the young maid Vespetta who blows hot and cold to marry her boss and get her freedom, coupled with the witty music Telemann wrote to paint it.

The story of the old rich man, who is ensnared and seduced by a young penniless woman, is one of the most well-worn tropes for the comedy stage, but it seems that, although the plot describes a class struggle, these intermezzi also reflect the battle of the sexes, the “Querelle des femmes.” This broad controversy about the nature of women and their capabilities was raging in the 1700s in Europe. The question was whether or not the female sex should be permitted to act in the same manner as the male one. Authors of the scholarly and popular sphere criticized or praised women’s essential nature, arguing for or against their capacity to equal men. The debate was especially heated on marriage, generally regarded as an extension of the social system, where husbands, like rulers, 15

had powers of authority over the members of the household, and more specifically over their wives. Two inclinations were present, one of contempt for the feminine sex, the other, under the influence of Platonism, tending to the eulogy.

Satires of this period moralize on the ridiculous situation of husbands being corrected by their wives. But the actual targets of the satires were the women. Religious prejudice—many viewed women as the daughters of Eve, the original temptress responsible for humanity being expelled from the Garden of Eden—had long-lasting consequences and can be clearly seen and heard in the popular intermezzi.

In Pimpinone, the satire on the relations between social classes is established by the complete German title of the work, as printed on the oldest libretto: Die Ungleiche Heyrath zwischen Vespetta und Pimpinone, oder dass Herrsch-Süchtige Cammer-Mädgen. The libretto of “The Unequal Marriage Between Vespetta and Pimpinone, or the Domineering Chambermaid” follows the two main rules of comedy as a genre: the characters should be people of humble birth and the plot should improve the morals of the audience by showing them various ludicrous mistakes that one should avoid. Like in Molière’s comedies (which inspired many Italian intermezzi), the story line is simple yet easy to develop as the three intermezzi show what happens when a “Domineering Chambermaid” enters into the “Unequal Marriage Between Vespetta and Pimpinone.”

As with Venetian operagoers, the audience of the Oper am Gänsemarkt in Hamburg could relate to the realistic beginning of the plot.

The impoverished Vespetta is searching for a position as a maid (a sight familiar in the fastgrowing population of Hamburg at this period) and her path crosses that of the rich “Bürger” Pimpinone, in search of a maid. The libretto does not fail to feature a few caustic criticisms of the frivolous aristocracy, as relevant in Hamburg as they were in Venice, as both cities were governed by their citizens, but the focus is on the relation between the master and the 16

servant girl. The declared ambition of Vespetta is to marry: for security, not for love. She plans to work hard as a maid to obtain a dowry from her boss for good service. Here, one may remember that giving a dowry to an employee was a custom of the time, giving a young maid a particular position in the family, close to a daughter. These transactions often legitimize coercive control of the “daughter” by her “father” by giving him authority over her. The abuses and discriminatory practices against women in marriage with financial payments such as dowry are present in Pimpinone. The wedding contract would specify how much of the dowry would go to the widow, how much to her children (before and after her death), and how much was controlled by the husband and his heirs. In Pimpinone, the dowry shifts purpose: first Vespetta works to obtain a dowry, but, after being married to her “benefactor”, she claims it back, as personal capital, when Pimpinone, then the “husband,” threatens her with separation. The amount of 10,000 thalers is staggering for the time, and its release could lead to Pimpinone’s financial ruin.

Vespetta’s plans do evolve: after she has captured the heart of Pimpinone with her perfect servile behavior, she runs hot and cold with the now-smitten man. The bourgeois, in fear of losing her, proposes marriage to Vespetta, and when she refuses to accept him without a dowry, offers her a munificent one.

The maid has won the top prize she was after: when she becomes the mistress of the house, she changes her social class. Here, the comedy takes an unexpected turn as her behavior, far from being a docile housewife, becomes cantankerous and she aspires to the habits of the aristocracy, with its expensive pastimes. In this way, Pimpinone seems first to offer a simple warning to the audience of Hamburg: don’t marry below your station in life nor contract an “Ungleiche Heyrath”: an unequal marriage.

Indeed, at the end of the plot, Pimpinone’s world is upside down as Vespetta claims total freedom: she wants to follow her own will in everything. That this desire for emancipation directs her to pleasures and frivolities such B o s t on E ar ly Mus i c F est i val

as masked balls, card games, and jewelry is a masculine convention of the time. The librettists of Pimpinone seem to show a woman who has all the characteristics of a daughter of Eve: a seductive temptress, and ultimately dangerous to men.

Marriage satire

“Où la cornette commande le chapeau obeyt” (Where the wimple commands, the hat obeys) French etching by Nicolas Guerard (ca. 1648–1719).

Collection of Gilbert Blin.

Even with the addition of mute characters, the traditionally reduced number of singers in the intermezzi cast was still a limitation for an elaborate development of the plot. Disguises and transvestism aided in overcoming this constraint. In Pimpinone, after her wedding, Vespetta appears dressed “as a lady,” and her behavior highlights her social ambition. As evidenced by a masked ball in Pimpinone, costumes are recurring as well as fundamental elements of commedia dell’arte and intermezzi.

Disguises are comedic resources, providing an almost endless supply of metamorphoses that offered the actors many possibilities to show their talents and reinforced the versatility that seems to be the innate characteristic of their 2 0 21–20 22 Seaso n

stock characters. The commedia dell’arte is a theatrical form focused on the actor, giving the performer the ability to act “all’improviso”: to create an original character from his own inspiration, therefore merging the role and the performer. One iconic character seems to embody this trend: Arlecchino. In the intrigues of the Italian comedies, wherein the end is always one or more marriages, Arlecchino is both actor and character either trying to foster or to prevent it, under multiple identities, often based on a social difference, a gender change, an age gap, etc. Period images reveal that Arlecchino always wore his mask, and that part of his usual multicolored, triangled costume was always visible under his disguise, whatever it was. Over the course of the eighteenth century, other performers who specialized in stock characters were also given the opportunity offered by multiple guises to show off their skills. Behind the mask, under the disguise, the performer must stand out.

Like in commedia dell’arte, the intermezzi were directly linked with the actor-singers who were performing it.

The role of the performers, in defining the new stylistic and dramaturgical characteristics of the intermezzo genre, is not less important than the ones of the composer and his librettist. The career and repertoire of these singers inform us as to the talents needed to excel in the intermezzo repertoire. On the original libretto of the 1725 Hamburg performance of Pimpinone, the names of the singers are recorded: Vespetta was sung by “Madame Kayserin” and Pimpinone by “Msr. Riemschneider, jun.” What we know of their careers supports the impression of specialized talents and of musical superiority. Margaretha Susanna Kayser (ca. 1690–ca. 1748) was one of the best opera singers in Germany during her long active career as a soprano and earned the stage name of “Die Kayserin,” the Empress. In 1708, her operatic soloist début in Hamburg as the seductive Mirtenia in Christoph Graupner’s Antiochus und Stratonica caused a stir. In 1717, she created the title role in Die Grossmütige Tomyris by 17

Reinhard Keiser and, from the music he wrote for her for this serious role, one can assert that she must have had astonishing vocal abilities and expressive versatility. She was also a good comic actress and her huge success in the role of Vespetta in Pimpinone encouraged Telemann and Praetorius to give her top billing the following year for its sequel, Die Amours der Vespetta oder der Galan in der Kiste. “Prima Donna assoluta” of the Hamburg musical scene, she became the director of the Oper am Gänsemarkt from 1729 until 1737, likely having been the very first woman in history to fill such a position. In 1736, a Hamburg newspaper wrote: “Despite her age, Madame Kayserin remains the most distinguished [singer]. Her person is theatrical, her voice is still good, except that she is, as they say, a little too Italian-minded, you know her, sir, and so you fully understand all her merits. I cannot deny that I have a lot of respect for her.”

Madame Kayserin’s partner in Pimpinone was “Msr. Riemschneider, jun.” Johann Gottfried Riemschneider was a German baritone whose brother, also a singer at the Oper am Gänsemarkt, was in fact singing Andronicus in Handel’s Tamerlano on the same night as his sibling was performing as Pimpinone. Indeed, although Riemschneider Junior also sang in Johann Mattheson’s oratorios, he specialized in comic roles for the operatic stage. In 1728, he sang the leading role of Scaramouche in Telemann’s Die verkehrte Welt, while Mme Kayserin sang the comical role of Hippocratine, a female surgeon (Docteur). This “Opera Comique” is inspired by Le monde renversé by Lesage, a comedy created on stage of the Fair in Paris in 1718 and illustrates the overlapping of the Italian, French, and German comic repertoires. In 1729, Riemschneider was employed in London by Handel for his New Academy, his second opera troupe. Being the lowest paid member of the company, Riemschneider’s voice was described as “more of a natural contralto than a bass. He sings sweetly in his throat and nose, pronounces Italian alla Cimbrica [in a Teutonic manner, Cimbrica being the south of Denmark and 18

north of Hamburg], acts like a sucking-pig, and looks like a valet de chambre.” Although inappropriate for the noble stiffness of opera seria, it may well be that it is these very characteristics which made his interpretation of Pimpinone a success, so important were the physical appearances and body language of the actors in the depictions of their characters.

The acting of an intermezzi’s performers needed to be physical as the audience was expecting new variations on well-known themes. The librettos, because of the musical nature of the final product, did not offer as many opportunities as the scenarios found in commedia dell’arte. Nevertheless, many situations in Pimpinone suggest physical expressions alongside, or instead of, sung words.

The importance of dance in these intermezzi is the first indicator: in the 1725 cast, a dancer “Msr. Buckhofer” is mentioned dancing an “Entrée der Verstellung” in Pimpinone, although the specific moment of this cameo is not identified. In the libretto, Vespetta explains that she acquired grace and pose thanks to the dancing master of her previous employer; her attractive composure is greatly appreciated by Pimpinone while her seductive answers lure the naïve bachelor. This theatrical affiliation with the acting style of commedia dell’arte was also often emphasized by the presence in the libretti of mute roles: highly skilled pantomimes and cameo caricatures of frivolous nobles, pedantic adjudicators, or drunk soldiers… These mute characters also emphasize the physicality of insults and imprecations, sure-to-succeed comic expedients that have always been practiced by commedia dell’arte actors.

The predilection of pamphleteers and caricaturists to characterize their human targets in animal forms is an ancient custom.

Starting with Aesop’s Fables, animals found their way in all kinds of apologues, legends, fairy tales, and myths. Jean de la Fontaine, the seventeenth-century French writer whose fables were translated all over Europe, gives the keys to their success, as these fables “are not only moral, but they also impart other knowledge; B o s t on E ar ly Mus i c F est i val

the properties of the animals and their various characteristics stated therein: therefore, ours too, since we are the epitome of what is good and bad in irrational creatures.” Operas, for reasons of courtly origin and decorum, generally restrict the use of animals to that of an accessory inspired by their mythological context (Actaeon as a stag and other Ovidian Metamorphoses) or literary inspiration (the Hippogriff in Orlando generoso). Italian comedy, however, develops animal themes where the functions of the animal relate more to the search for pure comic effect by giving the opportunity to the actors to demonstrate their physical skills, and commedia dell’arte with its masks exploited the theme thoroughly.

Characters such as the old Zanni has a mask with a bird beak, Pulcinella’s name resembles the Italian “pulcino,” a chicken, and Arlecchino, the most emblematic figure of the genre, has been often compared to a monkey but also to a cat, both reminiscent of the demoniac origin of the character. Zoomorphic masks also served as agents of transgression when a salacious intention underlies a comedy often made up of double-entendres, puns, and misappropriation of proverbs.

Likewise, the “animals” in the intermezzi of Telemann are less of a fauna than of a “bestiary.” Since the medieval period, bestiaries were presented in the form of typological collections where the description of animals and their allegorical interpretation serve as a support for the statement of moral precepts.

Decked out in their metaphorical masks, animals display the faults or the qualities that humans attribute to them: power or violence for the lion, vanity for the peacock, flattery for the cat, shrewdness for the fox, clumsiness for the bear, etc. The literary works of ancient Greece and Rome bear witness to the existence of this tradition, when it comes to specifically mocking women. The woman, dispossessed of her human status and reduced to the level of an animal, becomes the object of a commonplace, summarized in this fragment of Menander: “Of all the animals of land and sea / The worst is women, and will ever be.”

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Patientia Socratis (The Patience of Socrates)

Dutch Etching by Gerard de Jode (1516–1591).

Emblem 33 from Mikrokosmos = Parvus mundus. Book of Emblems, engraved by Gerard de Jode, with accompanying verses from Laurentius Haechtanus [Laurens van Haecht Goidtsenhoven].

Amsterdam: 1613.

The librettos of intermezzi, starting with the names of some of the characters, offer many references to this classical trend. The most famous can be found in Pergolesi’s La serva padrona where Serpina, the maid’s name, suggests “little female snake.” In Pimpinone’s libretto, created many years before Pergolesi, the name of the servant “Vespetta” is another striking example; coming from the Latin “Vespa,” it translates from the Italian as “little female Wasp.” The theme goes further in the libretto: at the beginning of the plot Vespetta advertises herself as a diligent, efficient, industrious maid…basically, all the qualities of the disciplined worker bee who provides honey and wax for its keeper, an analogy that was made by the ancient Greek authors.

Pimpinone, after deciding that he will marry Vespetta, affectionately patter-sings, “Pim, Pim, Pim, Pim, Pimpinina!” (a musical treatment which emphasizes the childish personality of the groom and has a remarkable resemblance to “Pa, pa, pa, Papagena” of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte). Pimpinone’s feelings for his “Pimpinina,” however, take a hostile turn in the third intermezzo, during which he describes his new bride as a savage bumblebee. Indeed, it is only after she marries him that her identity is understood by Pimpinone: she is a nefarious queen wasp. The librettist of Pimpinone goes as far as making his last intermezzo an upside19

down honeymoon; the period of thirty days in ancient Egypt, when newlyweds would drink a beverage made with honey, is now filled with bitterness: the wasp stings. When Telemann and Praetorius presented a sequel in 1727, Die Amours der Vespetta oder der Galan in der Kiste, they put Vespetta at the center of a plot playing with notions of serial adultery and even a “Suitor in the Trunk.”

Pimpinone’s comparison of Vespetta to “Xanthippe,” the unyielding wife of Socrates, is doubtless an in-joke referring to Telemann’s comic opera Der geduldige Socrates (The patient Socrates) which tells of the Greek philosopher’s conjugal misfortunes. The work had its first performance in Hamburg in the spring of 1721, four years before Pimpinone, even before the appointment of Telemann as Hamburg’s new “kantor.” The success of the piece led the way for Telemann to become the new musical director of the Oper am Gänsemarkt in 1722. Popular in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and embodied in visual and operatic as well as written forms, Socrates is represented as the archetypal henpecked intellectual, roughly treated by one, or as it is the case in Telemann’s Der geduldige Socrates, by two termagant wives. The libretto of this comedy in music, “Ein musikalisches Lustspiel,” is by Johann Ulrich von König, and like Pimpinone, it was based on an Italian original: the piece is replicated from La Patienza di Socrate con due Moglie by Nicolò Minato, which was performed in Prague with music by Antonio Draghi in 1680. Besides the success of Der geduldige Socrates, its use as a reference in Pimpinone suggests that “Socrates’ Xanthippe” may have been notorious in the Baroque period, and readily understood by a theater-going audience as the typical unruly woman. The fifth-century BC Athenian philosopher Socrates was already associated in Greco-Roman literature with rationalizing his wife Xanthippe’s rude behavior. From the late seventeenth century onwards there has been a tradition of comedies about Socrates in which his marital problems as well as his philosophy have played a fundamental part.

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The tale of Socrates’ marital situation became an allegory for the virtue of patience and this parable likely came from Seneca’s De Constantia Sapientis (On Firmness of the Wise Man): “Let us look at the examples of those men whose endurance we admire, as, for instance, that of Socrates, who took in good part the published and acted jibes of the comedians upon himself, and laughed no less than he did when he was drenched with dirty water by his wife Xanthippe.” The image of Xanthippe dousing Socrates with the “dirty water” of a chamber pot became a symbol of the moral tale of the shrewish wife, inflicting indignities upon her virtuous husband, and the model of a virtuous husband’s dispassionate, calm endurance. One interpretation of the parable is found in Plutarch’s Moralia: “Xanthippe, though she was a woman of a very angry and troublesome spirit, could never move Socrates to a passion. By being used to bear patiently this heavy sufferance at home, he was ever unconcerned, and not in the least moved by the most scurrilous and abusive tongues he met withal abroad. For it is much better to overcome boisterous passions and to bring the mind into a calm and even frame of spirit, by contentedly undergoing the scoffs, outrages, and affronts of enemies, than to be stirred up to choler or revenge by the worst they can say or do.”

Earlier images depicted Socrates’ wife Xanthippe pouring the contents of a chamber pot on his head are numerous, and, in fact, this anecdote was the only image of Socrates current in the Baroque period. The scene is often found in early printed emblem books (volumes collecting allegorical illustrations, each with an explanatory text) to illuminate the virtue of patience. As this type of moralizing publications was widely available, the emblem picture contributed to the status of the story in popular culture. Moreover, the anecdote is attractive, besides being instructive, because it is comical, as Seneca had initially suggested, putting it in relation with the Greek comedies satirizing Socrates. In the image by Gerard de Jode, however, there are differences between B o s t on E ar ly Mus i c F est i val

Seneca’s anecdote and the engraving: for illustrates an imaginary discussion between instance, the vessel on the picture is more a his wife Vespetta and another woman, her water jar than a chamber godmother, switching to pot. The indignity is different vocal ranges to softened by this choice, depict the conversation although there is real between two gossips. abuse in the background Here as well, Telemann’s of the etching where we writing is highly inspired see the two wives kicking by commedia dell’arte and hitting Socrates. traditions of specific vocal Nevertheless, the violence colors for the purpose in both scenes is physical of characterization, a and that feature led to a path already taken by fertile ground for the stage Albinoni in his version of and more specifically for the same text. Following the type of physical acting the dominant social the commedia dell’arte convention in Europe, required. On stage, like wives were expected to in satirical prints, scenes behave in a submissive where a man was bitten way toward their by a woman had great husbands. The message of popularity. Commedia the plot to the masculine dell’arte made great use audience of Hamburg of scatological jokes, was clear: facing a moody such as the “dirty water.” wife, be like Socrates, The pouring of the it says, and meet bad chamber pot on the head temper with patience. And of a husband became a indeed, in the last duet of “lazzi,” a type of acting Pimpinone, the bullied gag which actors would husband’s final words are fit in various plays; the “Ich bliebe Stumm.” This “lazzi” of the chamber ending, with Pimpinone Les Guêpes (The Wasps) pot had already been resolving to stay silent, Engraving by Jacques-Philippe Le Bas (1707–1783) immortalized in 1578 on may be inspired by the from Le Spectacle de la Nature, Paris, 1732, the remarkable frescoes line from the Gospel

by Antoine Pluche (1688–1761). of Trausnitz castle in of St. Luke, which can Collection of Gilbert Blin.

Bavaria which depicted, also be read under the floor after floor, the indignities suffered by the emblem of Gerard de Jode: “In patientia vestra amorous Pantalone, the indisputable commedia possidebitis animas vestras”: In your patience, dell’arte forefather of Telemann’s Pimpinone. possess ye your souls.

Xanthippe is also given a voice as a character speaking in one of the Colloquis of the Dutch philosopher Erasmus, where the philosopher conveys some of his ideas about wedlock. Titled “Coniugium,” the dialogue about marriage published in 1523 starts like the remarkable last and virtuosic aria of Pimpinone, “Sò quel che si dice,” where the irritated husband 2 021–20 22 Seaso n

While the libretto of Johann Philipp Praetorius, even with its Hamburg additions, reflects even more than its Italian model this masculine convention, Telemann’s choice of the ancient Socrates to stage a contemporary Pimpinone may also endorse a case of “art imitating life.”

Given what we know of Telemann’s troubled marriage to his younger second wife, there may 21

have been a private agenda—revenge, or selfexculpation—in the choice of staging a more popular and contemporary sequel to Socrates.

(Masculine) history has recorded that Maria Catharina Textor was fond of fine clothes which, linked with her gambling addiction, were the talk of Hamburg. Extravagant costumes, card games, and money in various forms, are all very present in the libretto of Pimpinone. The couple had eight sons and one daughter, and Socrates here again may enlighten a reason for the Socratic composure of Telemann: “She bore [my] children” had said the philosopher, justifying his patience with Xanthippe. Maria Catharina Textor eventually left Telemann, after her affair with a military man was exposed in a satirical play.

Perhaps the Xanthippe parable had broader appeal because it was open to the opposite interpretation. Indeed, some Hamburger spouses may have also enjoyed the story of a wife teaching her pompous husband a life lesson. Although the general belief that a wife depended on her husband’s will was widespread, some voices were pleading for a new position for women, specifically within marriage. The libretto of Pimpinone is full of events which can be viewed in this perspective:

Pimpinone’s criteria for hiring a maid are identical in his mind to the criteria for marrying a wife, but Vespetta states clearly that the two conditions should be totally distinct: “When I said this, I was still your maid; but now I’m your wife. So, stifle yourself!” Vespetta reclaims the right to follow her own will and do as she pleases. The libretto alludes therefore to a possible emancipation of married women by giving Vespetta a victory at the end of the piece, like Xanthippe standing up to Socrates.

Indeed, a Telemann composition, published in Der getreue Music-Meister (“The Faithful Music Master”) in 1728, would seem to support this idea. The Trio Sonata in C minor has movements with names of famous ladies from the ancient world, such as Dido, the deceived queen of Carthage; Corinna, the loved subject of Ovid’s elegies; Lucretia, who killed herself after being raped; Clelia (Cloelia), the courageous Roman woman…all women whose virtues outface the flaws of men. It is remarkable that Xanthippe, Socrates’ wife, is associated with these classical heroines by Telemann. The Xanthippe movement, marked “Presto,” is a witty and inventive portrait, and a beautiful tribute to a woman claiming her own will in front of man. n —Gilbert Blin

A N ote on Ino Romain Rolland (1866–1944) was a French dramatist, novelist, and essayist as well as an art and music historian. He won the Nobel prize for literature in 1915 and was a friend and correspondent of Sigmund Freud’s. In the middle of his fascinating and multi-faceted career he published a set of musical essays in 1919 titled Voyage musical aux pays du passé, which was translated into English in 1922 by Bernard Miall as A Musical Tour Through the Land of the Past. One essay was devoted to Telemann, “A Forgotten Master.” Over a hundred years ago, Rolland was able to clearly see the heroic dimensions of Telemann’s achievement which we are just beginning to understand now. He was so enthralled with Telemann’s cantata Ino, written when the composer was eighty-four years old, that he contributed this detailed study of the work: The cantata Ino constitutes a great advance upon the path of musical drama. The poem

by Ramler, who contributed to the resurrection of the German Lied, is a masterpiece. It was published in 1765. Several composers set it to music: among others, J. C. F. Bach of Bückeburg, Kirnberger, and the Abbé Vogler. Even a modern musician would find it an excellent subject for a cantata—the reader may remember the legend of Ino, daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia, sister of Semele, and Dionysus’ foster-mother. She wedded 22

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the hero Athamas, who, when Juno destroyed his reason, killed one of his sons and sought to kill the other. Ino fled with the child and, still pursued, threw herself into the sea, which welcomed her; and there she became Leucothea, “the White,” white as the foam of the waves. Ramler’s poem shows Ino only, from the beginning to the end; it is an overwhelming part, for a continual expenditure of emotion is required. In the beginning she arrives running over the rocks overlooking the sea; she no longer has strength to fly, but invokes the gods. She perceives Athamas and hears his shouts, and flings herself into the waves. A soft and peaceful symphony welcomes her thither. Ino expresses her astonishment. But her child has escaped from her arms; she believes him lost, calls him, and invokes death. She sees the chorus of the Tritons and the Nereids, who are holding him up. She describes her fantastic journey at the bottom of the sea; corals and pearls attach themselves to her tresses; the Tritons dance around her, saluting her as a goddess under the name Leucothea. Suddenly Ino sees the ocean gods returning, running and raising their arms. Neptune arrives in his chariot, the golden trident in his hand, his horses snorting in terror. A hymn to the glory of God closes the cantata.

These magnificent Hellenic visions lent themselves to the plastic and poetical imagination of a musician. Telemann’s music is worthy of the poem. It is a marvelous thing that a man more than eighty years of age should have a written a composition full of such freshness and passion. n —Stephen Stubbs

The Insane Athamas Killing Learchus, While Ino and Melicertes Jump into the Sea

Etching by Antonio Tempesta (1555–1630) from The Metamorphoses, ca. 1606, by Ovid.

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Artist Prof iles Abou t t he D ir ectors Paul O’Dette has been described as “the clearest case of genius ever to touch his instrument” (Toronto Globe and Mail). He appears regularly at major festivals throughout the world performing lute recitals and in chamber music programs with leading early music colleagues. Mr. O’Dette has made more than 150 recordings, winning two Grammy Awards and receiving eight Grammy nominations and numerous international record awards. The Complete Lute Music of John Dowland (a 5-CD set for harmonia mundi usa) was awarded the prestigious Diapason d’Or de l’Année, and was named “Best Solo Lute Recording of Dowland” by BBC Radio 3. The Bachelar’s Delight: Lute Music of Daniel Bacheler was nominated for a Grammy as Best Solo Instrumental Recording in 2006. While best known for his recitals and recordings of virtuoso solo lute music, Paul O’Dette is also active as a conductor of Baroque opera.

Together with Stephen Stubbs he won a Grammy as conductor in 2015 for Best Opera Recording, as well as an Echo Klassik Award, for their recording of Charpentier’s La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers with the Boston Early Music Festival Chamber Ensemble. Their CDs of Conradi’s Ariadne, Lully’s Thésée, and Lully’s Psyché, with the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra on the CPO label, were nominated for Grammys in 2005, 2007, and 2008; their 2015 BEMF CD of Steffani’s Niobe, Regina di Tebe on the Erato/Warner Classics label was also nominated for a Grammy, and received both an Echo Klassik and the coveted Jahrespreis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik. Their recording of Charpentier’s Les Arts Florissants was nominated for Grammy in 2019. In addition to his activities as a performer, Paul O’Dette is an avid researcher, having worked extensively on the performance of seventeenth-century Italian and English solo song, continuo practices, and lute repertoire. He has published numerous articles on issues of historical performance practice, and co-authored the John Dowland entry in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Paul O’Dette is Professor of Lute and Director of Early Music at the Eastman School of Music and Artistic Co-Director of the Boston Early Music Festival.

Stephen Stubbs, who won the Grammy Award as conductor for Best Opera Recording in 2015, spent a thirty-year career in Europe. He returned to his native Seattle in 2006 as one of the world’s most respected lutenists, conductors, and Baroque opera specialists. He now lives with his family in Santa Clarita, California. In 2007, Stephen established his new production company, Pacific MusicWorks (PMW), based in Seattle, reflecting his lifelong interest in both early music and contemporary performance. The company’s inaugural presentation was a production of South African artist William Kentridge’s acclaimed multimedia staging of Claudio Monteverdi’s opera The Return of Ulysses in a co-production with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. PMW’s performances of the Monteverdi Vespers were described in the press as “utterly thrilling” and “of a quality you are unlikely to encounter anywhere else in the world.” Stephen Stubbs is also the Boston Early Music Festival’s Artistic Co-Director along with his long-time colleague Paul O’Dette. Stephen and Paul are also the musical directors 2 021–20 22 Seaso n

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of all BEMF operas, recordings of which were nominated for six Grammy awards, including one Grammy win in 2015. Also in 2015, BEMF recordings won two Echo Klassik awards and the Diapason d’Or de l’Année. In 2017, they received the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik. In addition to his ongoing commitments to PMW and BEMF, other recent appearances have included Handel’s Giulio Cesare and Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice in Bilbao, Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte and Così fan tutte for the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival, Handel’s Agrippina and Semele for Opera Omaha, Cavalli’s La Calisto and Rameau’s Hippolyte et Aricie for Juilliard, Mozart’s Il re pastore for the Merola program, and seven productions for Opera UCLA including Cavalli’s Giasone, Monteverdi’s Poppea, and Handel’s Amadigi. In recent years he has conducted Handel’s Messiah with the Seattle, Edmonton, Birmingham, Houston, and Nova Scotia Symphony orchestras. His extensive discography as conductor and solo lutenist includes well over 100 CDs, many of which have received international acclaim and awards.

Gilbert Blin graduated from the Paris Sorbonne with a Master’s degree focusing on Rameau’s operas, an interest that he has broadened to encompass French opera and its relation to Baroque theater, his fields of research as historian, stage director, and set and costume designer. He was awarded a Doctorate from Leiden University for a thesis dedicated to his approach to Historically Informed Staging. His début productions include Massenet’s Werther and Delibes’s Lakmé for Paris Opéra-Comique, and Meyerbeer’s Robert le Diable for Prague State Opera. Since his production of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice for the Drottningholm Theatre in Sweden in 1998, Dr. Blin has established himself as a soughtafter opera director for the early repertoire: he directed Vivaldi’s Orlando furioso for the Prague State Opera, designed and staged Vivaldi’s Rosmira fedele, Handel’s Teseo and Alessandro Scarlatti’s Il Tigrane for Opéra de Nice, and directed Lully’s Thésée and Lully’s Psyché for the Boston Early Music Festival. As Stage Director in Residence at BEMF beginning in 2008, Gilbert Blin staged a trilogy of English operas: Blow’s Venus and Adonis, Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, and Handel’s Acis and Galatea. In 2011, after the staging of Steffani’s Niobe, Regina di Tebe, he presented Charpentier’s La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers and La Couronne de Fleurs. In 2013, with his production of Handel’s Almira, Gilbert Blin was appointed Opera Director of the Boston Early Music Festival. Following his acclaimed staging and set designs of Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea for the 2009 Boston Festival, Dr. Blin staged Monteverdi’s Orfeo for the BEMF Chamber Opera Series in 2012 and the composer’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria in 2015. In 2016, Gilbert Blin created Versailles: Portrait of a Royal Domain, a spectacle comprising pieces by Charpentier, Lully, and Lalande. His recent productions include Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice for Seattle, Campra’s Le Carnaval de Venise and Steffani’s Orlando generoso for Boston, and Caccini’s Alcina for New York.

One of America’s most prominent Baroque violinists, Robert Mealy has been praised for his “imagination, taste, subtlety, and daring” by the Boston Globe. The New Yorker has called him “New York’s world-class early music violinist.”

Mr. Mealy began exploring early music in high school. While still an undergraduate at Harvard College, he was asked to join the Canadian Baroque orchestra Tafelmusik. Since then, he has 2 021–20 22 Seaso n

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recorded and toured with a wide range of distinguished early music ensembles in the U.S. and Europe, from Sequentia to Les Arts Florissants. He has led orchestras for Masaaki Suzuki, Nicholas McGegan, William Christie, Andrew Parrott, Paul Agnew, and Helmuth Rilling, among many others. Mr. Mealy is Orchestra Director of the Boston Early Music Festival. Since 2005 he has led the BEMF Orchestra in their festival performances and award-winning recordings. In New York, he is principal concertmaster at Trinity Wall Street for their concerts of the complete Bach cantatas.

He is also co-director of the acclaimed seventeenth-century ensemble Quicksilver. In summers he teaches at the American Baroque Soloists Academy in San Francisco and is often a featured artist at William Christie’s summer festival in Thiré. In 2018, Mr. Mealy made his recital début at Carnegie Hall. A devoted teacher as well as a performer, Mr. Mealy has directed the graduate Historical Performance Program at The Juilliard School since 2012. He has led his Juilliard students in acclaimed performances at Alice Tully Hall and in many international tours, including performances as conservatory-in-residence at the Utrecht Festival and concerts in distant lands like India and New Zealand. From 2003 to 2015, he was on the faculty of Yale; prior to that, he taught at Harvard for over a decade. In 2004, he received EMA’s Binkley Award for outstanding teaching and scholarship.

He has recorded over 80 CDs on most major labels. He still likes to practice.

Melinda Sullivan is the Lucy Graham Director of Dance at the Boston Early Music Festival. She most recently produced A Retrospective: The Story of the BEMF Dance Company, available on BEMF’s YouTube page. Ms. Sullivan danced in her first BEMF production—Henry Purcell’s King Arthur—in 1995. She returned to dance and assist the late choreographer Lucy Graham in all subsequent BEMF opera productions over the next twelve years. In 2008, Ms. Sullivan assumed the role of BEMF Ballet Mistress, training dancers and singers in Baroque and Renaissance style and technique. Her first choreography for BEMF was Dido and Aeneas in 2010, following a featured role as the Silent Mover in the 2009 BEMF production of Handel’s Acis and Galatea. Since then she has choreographed extensively for BEMF, including productions and revivals of Charpentier’s La Couronne de Fleurs and La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers, Monteverdi’s Orfeo, Pergolesi’s La serva padrona and Livietta e Tracollo, and Caccini’s Alcina. A graduate of Boston Conservatory, Ms. Sullivan quickly established herself as a dynamic performer in Boston’s modern dance scene. Her initial studies in Renaissance dance were with the distinguished historian and teacher of dance, Dr. Ingrid Brainard, and led to performances with the Ken Pierce Baroque Dance Company. At the same time she created a unique movement and dance program for singers at New England Conservatory, where she taught for twenty-five years. She also taught for ten years at Boston University Opera Institute. Since 2008 Sullivan has been Resident Choreographer at Central City Opera. Her recent choreographies have been for Boston Lyric Opera and Odyssey Opera. Upcoming choreographies include The Light in the Piazza and Die Fledermaus for Central City Opera.

Marie-Nathalie Lacoursière is the co-artistic director of Les Jardins Chorégraphiques in Montréal, a company that she founded in 2007. She has directed and choreographed over thirty Baroque and contemporary operas in Canada and on international stages including world premieres such as Paolo Lorenzani’s Nicandro e Fileno, Lully’s Ballet de l’Impatience, Juliet Palmer’s The Man Who Married Himself, and James Rolfe’s Europa. She has performed at several international festivals: Prangins Baroque (Switzerland), Lanvelec and Saint-Riquier (France), Musicale Estense (Italy), FestiVita (Belgium), Harpsichord in Concert (Corsica), New Zealand Chamber Music Festival, 2 0 21–20 22 Seaso n

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and Early Music Vancouver (Canada). Associate director of the Toronto Masque Theater for fifteen years, she has choreographed all of Henry Purcell’s stage works. Marie-Nathalie was invited by director Gilbert Blin at the Opéra de Nice and subsequently collaborated in several of his opera productions at the Boston Early Music Festival as a dancer and choreographer in Steffani’s Orlando generoso, Campra’s Le Carnaval de Venise, and Lully’s Psyché.

Meriem Bahri (aka WERIEM) is a French and Tunisian costume designer praised by the press for her “gorgeous and evocative,” “spectacular,” and “sumptuous array of period-perfect” costumes (New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Chicago Tribune, respectively). After completing a Ph.D. in science, she turned definitively to her great passion for costumes when she moved to Chicago. She collaborates regularly with groups specializing in early music like The Newberry Consort, Haymarket Opera Company, and Opera Lafayette. She has also brought her design skills to the Beethoven Festival, Elements Contemporary Ballet, Balam Dance Theater, International Voices Project, the Joffrey Academy of Dance, Ensemble Dal Niente, and Nordic Baroque Dancers. This season, she makes her début with Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm and with the Boston Early Music Festival. WERIEM is also an illustrator and the co-founder of Arpeggiato.com, an online music school. For more information, please visit weriem.com.

Aja M. Jackson is a Boston-based lighting designer. Her credits include A Commercial Jingle for Regina Comet (off-Broadway, DR2), Hear Word! (American Repertory Theatre and Under the Radar Festival at the Public Theater NYC), Black Odyssey Boston (Central Square Theatre), Ragtime (Wheelock Family Theatre), We Are Proud to Present… (Brandeis University), Nat Turner in Jerusalem (Actors’ Shakespeare Project), Straight White Men and Nixon’s Nixon (New Rep), Leftovers (Company One – Strand Theatre), The Last Wife (WAM Theatre), Hot Water Over Raised Fists (Modern Connections), and FireBird (Abilities Dance Boston). Aja is also the Resident Lighting Designer and core collaborator for the site-specific movement company HOLDTIGHT, and serves as Board Chair on the Board of Directors for Brighter Boston. Her website is at ajajacksonlighting.com.

Kelly Martin is a lighting designer and associate based in New York City. Previous designs for Boston Early Music Festival include Orlando generoso, Alcina, and Versailles: Portrait of a Royal Domain. He has lit productions with numerous theater, opera, and dance organizations, including Pick Up Performance Co, New York Theatre Ballet, Opera North, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, The Bang Group, Co•Lab Dance, Duncan Lyle Dance, Suffolk University, and MIT. In addition to being the lighting director for New York Theatre Ballet and writer/director/performer Ain Gordon, he frequently works with designers both in the city and regionally.

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Boson Early Music Fesival 3 2

2009 | Acis and Galatea

Sharing c! the musi Visit BEMF.org for “BEMF at Home” Enjoy video excerpts from over a decade of BEMF Opera productions!

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Kathleen Fay has served as Executive Director of the Boston Early Music Festival since 1989, and as General Manager since 1987. For over three decades, she has been, and continues to be responsible for all administrative, development, financial, and artistic departments of the organization, as well as the management of biennial Festivals, the annual concert seasons in Boston and in New York City at the Morgan Library & Museum, the annual Chamber Opera Series, and the Festival’s Baroque Opera Recording Project. The project features a total of fourteen CDs to date on the CPO and Erato labels, six of which have been nominated for Grammy Awards for Best Opera Recording, and one awarded the Grammy. Ms. Fay is a founding Trustee of the Catalogue for Philanthropy and serves on the boards of the Cambridge Society for Early Music, Exsultemus, and Constellation Center. She is also a member of the Advisory Board of Harvard University’s Early Music Society. In November 2001, Ms. Fay was named Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture as a result of her significant contribution to furthering the arts in France and throughout the world. In June 2003, she received the distinguished Arion Award from the Cambridge Society of Early Music for her “outstanding contributions to musical culture.” And, in June 2011, the Board of Directors of Early Music America named the Boston Early Music Festival, Kathleen Fay, Executive Director, as the 2011 recipient of the Howard Mayer Brown Award, for lifetime achievement in the field of early music. The BEMF Board of Directors established the permanent Kathleen Fay Leadership Fund in February 2017, in recognition of her thirty-year anniversary leading BEMF. Ms. Fay is a widely respected impresario and promoter of early music in North America and Europe. She holds graduate degrees in Piano Performance and Music Teaching from the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music.

A B OU T T H E B E M F VO CAL E NS E M BLE Soprano Amanda Forsythe sang Eurydice on Boston Early Music Festival’s 2015 Grammywinning recording of Charpentier’s La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers, and earned widespread acclaim for her albums of Handel arias with Apollo’s Fire (Avie) and Gluck’s Orfeo with Philippe Jaroussky (Erato). With BEMF, she has performed operas by Campra, Steffani, Pergolesi, Handel, Charpentier, and Monteverdi, many of which are available on recording. Other opera engagements have included roles for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Rossini Opera Festival, Pesaro; and the major houses of Geneva, Munich, Seattle, Rome, Berlin, and Philadelphia. Other career highlights have included concerts with Boston Symphony under Andris Nelsons, Los Angeles Philharmonic with Susanna Mälkki, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia with Sir Antonio Pappano, Chicago Symphony with Nicholas Kraemer, Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra with Sir John Eliot Gardiner, and Philharmonia Baroque with Nicholas McGegan. She performs regularly with Tafelmusik, Handel and Haydn Society, Apollo’s Fire, Les Talens Lyriques, and Boston Baroque. Forthcoming engagements include her début with New York Philharmonic in Messiah and engagements with Music of the Baroque, Boston Baroque, and NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover.

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Danielle Reutter-Harrah has performed with Boston Early Music Festival, Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Opera, California Bach Society, Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado, and Early Music Vancouver, among others. Her favorite past performances include Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria (Melanto) and Orfeo (La Musica/Messaggiera), Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas (Dido/Belinda), Bach’s Magnificat (soprano/alto soloist) and St. Matthew Passion (alto soloist), and Handel’s Messiah (soprano/alto soloist). Most recently, she joined the Whidbey Island Music Festival for a Schubert program with harp, guitar, and violin, as well as a concert of arias by Bach, Telemann, and Krieger. She joins Pacific MusicWorks during the holiday season for their annual Navidad! concert featuring underperformed music from Central and South America. She sings frequently with Seattle’s Byrd Ensemble and teaches privately. Danielle received her BM from the University of Denver’s Lamont School of Music and her MM from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Bass-baritone Douglas Williams has appeared in Boston Early Music Festival operas, concerts, and recordings since 2003 when he was a student at the New England Conservatory. He then went on to train at the Yale School of Music and Tanglewood Music Festival, and lived for a few years in New York City before moving to Berlin, where he currently resides. Douglas has appeared with the Munich Philharmonic, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Houston Symphony, Berlin Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, Salzburg Camerata, and NDR Radiophilharmonie. In opera, his repertoire includes Monteverdi, Handel, Mozart, Puccini, and Stravinsky, with directors and conductors such as Mark Morris, Sasha Waltz, James Darrah, Barbara Hannigan, Simon Rattle, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and Nicholas McGegan. This season Douglas appears with the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, Opera Atelier, Le Concert Spirituel, and Opéra de Tours. Douglas is also a writer and performer and during the pandemic lockdowns created an online audio play entitled The Compound.

The Boston Early Music Festival Vocal Ensemble débuted in November of 2008 in Boston with John Blow’s Venus and Adonis and MarcAntoine Charpentier’s Actéon. The ensemble is a collection of fine young singers dedicated to presenting choice operatic and other treasures as both soloists and members of the chorus, under the leadership of BEMF Artistic Directors Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs. The BEMF Vocal and Chamber Ensemble’s début recording of Charpentier’s Actéon, on the CPO label, was released in November 2010. Subsequent CPO releases include Blow’s Venus and Adonis in June 2011, the Charpentier opera double bill of La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers and La Couronne de Fleurs in February 2014, which won the Grammy Award in 2015 for Best Opera Recording and the 2015 Echo Klassik Opera Recording of the Year (17th/18th Century Opera), Handel’s Acis and 34

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Galatea in November 2015, Charpentier’s Les Plaisirs de Versailles and Les Arts Florissants, which was nominated for a Grammy in 2019, and Lalande’s Les Fontaines de Versailles and Le Concert d’Esculape in September 2020. The BEMF Vocal Ensemble has mounted successful tours of its chamber opera productions, including a four-city North American Tour of Acis and Galatea in early 2011 that included the American Handel Festival in Seattle, and a North American Tour of the Charpentier double bill in 2014.

A B OU T T H E B E M F Cha mber E NS E M BLE Doug Balliett is a composer, instrumentalist, and poet based in New York City. The New York Times has described his poetry as “brilliant and witty” (Clytie and the Sun), his bass playing as “elegant” (Shawn Jaeger’s In Old Virginny), and his compositions as “vivid, emotive, with contemporary twists” (Actaeon). Popular new music blog I Care if You Listen has critiqued Mr. Balliett’s work as “weird in the best possible way” (A Gnostic Passion) and “light-hearted yet dark…it had the audience laughing one minute and in tears the next…” (Pyramus and Thisbe). He hosted a weekly show on New York Public Radio for three years, and was a titled member of the San Antonio Symphony for five. He teaches historical performance and a Beatles course at The Juilliard School, and composes weekly cantatas for a Roman Catholic Church on the lower east side of NYC. With a constant stream of commissions and regular performances in America and Europe, Mr. Balliett has been identified as a voice for his generation.

Violoncellist Phoebe Carrai, a native Bostonian, completed her post-graduate studies in Austria with Nikolaus Harnoncourt, after studying with Lawrence Lesser and receiving her B.M. and M.M. at New England Conservatory of Music.

She became a member of Musica Antiqua Köln in 1982, making over 40 recordings for Deutsche Grammophon and touring the world. Ms. Carrai taught for sixteen years at the Universität der Künste Berlin in Germany, and is presently on the faculties of The Juilliard School and the Longy School of Music. She started the New Year’s Resolution Baroque Cello Bootcamp fifteen years ago and it is still one of her greatest joys each year! She also teaches many summer courses and workshops. Along with her solo and chamber music concerts, she performs regularly with Philharmonia Baroque, the Arcadian Academy, Juilliard Baroque, the Boston Early Music Festival, and the Göttingen Festival Orchestra. Ms. Carrai has made three solo recordings with Avie Records; the latest is Out of Italy. She plays on an Italian violoncello from circa 1690.

Described as “a tireless force of musical curiosity, skill, and enthusiasm” and “the one to up the ante” (Boston Musical Intelligencer), Sarah Darling enjoys a varied musical career as a performer, educator, and musical co-conspirator on viola and Baroque violin. She is a member of the Grammynominated self-conducted orchestra A Far Cry, as well as Boston Baroque, Musicians of the Old Post Road, Emmanuel Music, the Boston Ballet Orchestra, Les Bostonades, Newton Baroque, the Boston Camerata, the Boston Early Music Festival, and the Carmel Bach Festival. Sarah studied 2 021–20 22 Seaso n

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at Harvard, Juilliard, Amsterdam, Freiburg, and New England Conservatory, working with James Dunham, Karen Tuttle, Wolfram Christ, Nobuko Imai, and Kim Kashkashian. She has recorded old and new music for Linn, Paladino, Azica, MSR, Centaur, and Crier Records, plus a solo album on Naxos. Sarah is active as a teacher and coach, relishing the opportunity to “translate” between musical worlds while serving on the faculty of the Longy School of Music and co-directing the Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra.

Emi Ferguson can be heard live in concerts and festivals with groups including the Boston Early Music Festival, Handel and Haydn Society, AMOC*, the New York New Music Ensemble, and the Manhattan Chamber Players. Emi’s recordings for Arezzo Music, Fly the Coop: Bach Sonatas and Preludes with Ruckus (2019) and Amour Cruel (2017) were among the top 10 albums on the Classical and World Music Billboard Charts and showcase Emi’s fascination with reinvigorating music and instruments of the past for the present. Emi has spoken and performed at several TEDx events and has been featured on media outlets including the Discovery Channel, Amazon Prime, and Vox talking about how music relates to our world today. Born in Japan and raised in London and Boston, she now resides in New York City. For more information please visit emiferguson.com.

Violinist Emily Dahl Irons is an active performer known for her inventive and intuitive style. She enjoys a diverse career ranging from Broadway musicals to Baroque opera. Performing works from the most intimate to the most grand, career highlights include a Beethoven-themed salon concert using an 1807 Broadwood piano and the St. Matthew Passion at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. Recognized throughout Boston for her poised and gracious sound, Emily can be heard with the Boston Early Music Festival, Handel and Haydn Society, and Les Bostonades, among others.

Violinist Jesse Irons enjoys a busy and excitingly diverse musical life in and around his home city of Boston. He is the Associate Concertmaster of Boston Baroque and he appears regularly with the Handel and Haydn Society, the Boston Early Music Festival, and with numerous small ensembles including Sarasa and Musicians of the Old Post Road. He has recently appeared as soloist with Boston Baroque, Newton Baroque, Chicago’s Baroque Band, and the City Orchestra of Hong Kong. A member and co-artistic director of the multi-Grammy-nominated ensemble A Far Cry, he has appeared in 36

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concert across North America, Europe, and Central and Southeast Asia. Jesse’s playing has been described as “insinuating” by the New York Times, and he’s pretty sure they meant it in a good way. As an educator, Jesse has worked with students on entrepreneurship and chamber music at MIT, Yale, Stanford, Eastman, Peabody, and New England Conservatory.

Laura Jeppesen studied at the Hamburg Hochschule and the Brussels Conservatory and received a Master’s degree from Yale University.

She has been a Woodrow Wilson Designate, a Fulbright Scholar, and a fellow of the Bunting Institute at Harvard. A prominent member of Boston’s early music community, she has long associations with The Boston Museum Trio, Boston Baroque, the Handel and Haydn Society, the Boston Early Music Festival, and Aston Magna. She has performed as soloist with conductors Christopher Hogwood, Edo de Waart, Seiji Ozawa, Craig Smith, Martin Pearlman, Harry Christophers, Grant Llewellyn, and Bernard Haitink. She has an extensive discography, including the gamba sonatas of J. S. Bach and music of Marin Marais, Buxtehude, Rameau, Telemann, and Clérambault. She has won awards of special distinction in teaching at Harvard in 2015 and 2019 and she is a 2017 recipient of a Mellon grant for innovative teaching at Wellesley College.

Flutist Andrea LeBlanc has been praised for her “sensitive and beautiful playing, with crystalline tone and execution” (Early Music America).

Ms. LeBlanc is devoted to furthering the artistry and expression of the flute by performing on instruments original to or reproductions from the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic eras.

Her regular engagements include the Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Baroque, Mercury Houston, and Arcadia Players. Ms. LeBlanc performs chamber music of the late Classical and early Romantic periods with pianist David Hyun-su Kim. She has also performed with the Boston Early Music Festival, Aston Magna Music Festival, Portland Bach Experience, the Blue Hill Bach Festival, and the Big Moose Bach Festival in Gorham, New Hampshire. Ms. LeBlanc holds a B.Mus. with honors and distinction in performance from New England Conservatory and a M.Mus. from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and spent a year furthering her study of the traverso at the Royal Conservatoire The Hague.

Cynthia Roberts is one of America’s leading Baroque violinists, appearing as soloist, concertmaster, and recitalist throughout the U.S., Europe, and Asia. She is a faculty member of The Juilliard School and also teaches at the Curtis Institute, University of North Texas, and the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute.

She has given master classes at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Indiana University, Eastman, the Cleveland Institute, Cornell, Rutgers, Minsk Conservatory, LeopoldMozart-Zentrum Augsburg, Shanghai Conservatory, Vietnam National Academy of Music, and 2 021–20 22 Seaso n

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for the Jeune Orchestre Atlantique in France. She performs regularly with the Trinity Baroque Orchestra, Smithsonian Chamber Players, Tafelmusik, and the Boston Early Music Festival. She has performed as concertmaster of Les Arts Florissants and appeared with Bach Collegium Japan, Orchester Wiener Akademie, the London Classical Players, and the Taverner Players. She was featured as soloist and concertmaster on the soundtrack of the Touchtone Pictures film Casanova.

Her recording credits include Sony, CPO, and Deutsche Harmonia Mundi.

Michael Sponseller is recognized as one of the outstanding American harpsichordists of his generation. A highly diversified career brings him to festivals and concert venues all around the world in recital, concerto soloist, and active continuo performer on harpsichord, organ, and fortepiano. After studies at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music with Lisa Goode Crawford and Royal Conservatoire The Hague, he garnered prizes at the International Harpsichord Competitions of Montréal and Bruges, including First Prizes at both American Bach Soloists and Jurow International Harpsichord Competitions, all before the age of 25. Since then, Mr. Sponseller appears regularly as harpsichordist and continuo organist with such Baroque ensembles as Aston Magna, Washington Bach Consort, Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, Atalante, Tragicomedia, and Pacific MusicWorks, and with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He is a regular presence at Boston’s Emmanuel Music Bach Cantata Series.

In 2014, he became Associate Director of Bach Collegium San Diego. Mr. Sponseller can be heard on over 20 recordings from CPO, Avie, Delos, Centaur, Eclectra, and Naxos.

Nathanael Udell is a recent graduate of Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, earning his Doctor of Music under the tutelage of the former principal horn of the Chicago Symphony, Dale Clevenger. A graduate of both Rice University and The Juilliard School, he studied with principal horn player of the Houston Symphony, William VerMeulen, and former American Brass Quintet member Dr. David Wakefield. Aside from modern horn, Nathanael also studied natural horn with R. J. Kelley, Richard Seraphinoff, and Anneke Scott, and has performed with the Gotham Early Music Ensemble (NYC), Mercury Baroque (Houston), Grand Harmonie (Boston), and Jubilate Baroque (San Francisco); with Le Grande Bande (Minneapolis) as guest principal; and is currently principal horn of Teatro Nuovo (NYC), founded and directed by William Crutchfield.

Hailed by Gramophone for his “impressive horn playing,” Todd Williams is an active performer and educator based in Philadelphia. A leading exponent of the natural horn in America, he currently serves as Principal Horn of the Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Baroque, Philharmonia Baroque, Trinity Baroque, Clarion Society, Apollo’s Fire, Mercury, Opera Lafayette, Tempesta di Mare, and others. Past 3 8

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seasons have included appearances as guest principal with Tafelmusik and the American Bach Soloists. He has conducted lectures on the natural horn at the music schools of Curtis, Eastman, and Oberlin, and joined the faculty of The Juilliard School in 2018. On the modern valved horn, he is a staple of the Philadelphia music scene performing with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra, the Opera and Ballet companies of Philadelphia, and the Philly Pops.

From 2003 to 2014, he served as solo horn of the French opera festival Lyrique-en-Mer. He has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, RCA/Sony Records, Atlantic Records, CORO, Naxos, Musica Omnia, Chaconne/Chandos, and Warner Brothers.

The Boston Early Music Festival Chamber Ensemble was established in October of 2008, and delighted the public a month later at the inauguration of the Boston Early Music Festival Chamber Opera Series, which débuted in Boston with a production of John Blow’s Venus and Adonis and Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Actéon.

The BEMF Chamber Ensemble is an intimate subset of the BEMF Orchestra. Depending upon the size and scale of a project, the BEMF Chamber Ensemble is led by one or both of BEMF’s Artistic Directors, Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs, or by BEMF’s Orchestra Director Robert Mealy, and features the best Baroque instrumentalists from around the world. The BEMF Chamber Ensemble’s third CD on the CPO label, the Charpentier opera double bill of La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers and La Couronne de Fleurs, won the Grammy Award in 2015 for Best Opera Recording. Their fifth CD, Steffani’s Duets of Love and Passion, featuring sopranos Amanda Forsythe and Emőke Baráth, tenor Colin Balzer, and baritone Christian Immler, was released in September 2017 in conjunction with a six-city tour of North America, and received a Diapason d’Or. Their sixth CD—of Johann Sebastiani’s 1663 Matthäus Passion—was recorded immediately prior to their presenting a concert of the work at the prestigious Musikfest Bremen, and was released in February 2018. The seventh CD, a return to Charpentier featuring Les Plaisirs de Versailles and Les Arts Florissants, was nominated for a Grammy in 2019, and the eighth, Lalande’s Les Fontaines de Versailles and Le Concert d’Esculape, was released in September 2020.

A B OU T T H E B E M F Dance Compa ny The Boston Early Music Festival Dance Company (previously known as the BEMF Dance Ensemble) was originally founded in 2010 as an integral part of BEMF’s Chamber Opera Series production of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. The troupe is made up of American dancers and invited international guests, and is under the artistic supervision of Melinda Sullivan, Lucy Graham Dance Director. As director of the company, she recruits and trains dancers, organizes the practice of technique and style, and supports the work of guest choreographers. The members of the Company perform both noble and character dances in Festival centerpiece operas, annual chamber opera performances and tours, and orchestra concerts. A unique component of the BEMF Dance Company is that it extends invitations to Baroque dance specialists from around the world. This enriches the experience of all the performers by offering opportunities for dance specialists to share their research with the audience while rehearsing and performing at the Festival, and contributes significantly to a deeper knowledge and appreciation of Baroque dance.

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2011 | Niobe, Regina di Tebe | Philippe Jaroussky

Make a Difference

Boson Early Music Fesival Planned Giving

Play a vital and permanent role in BEMF’s future with a planned gift. Your generous support will create unforgettable musical experiences for years to come, and may provide you and your loved ones with considerable tax benefits.

Join the BEMF ORPHEUS SOCIETY by investing in the future of the Boston Early Music Festival through a charitable annuity, bequest, or other planned gift. With many ways to give and to direct your gift, our staff will work together with you and your advisors to create a legacy that is personally meaningful to you.

To learn more, please call us at 617-661-1812, email us at kathy@bemf.org, or visit us online at BEMF.org/plannedgiving.

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Aaron Sheehan in BEMF’s 2017 production of Campra’s Le Carnaval de Venise Photo: Kathy Wittman

Boson Early Music Fesival International Baroque Opera • Celebrated Concerts • World-Famous Exhibition

The Boston Early Music Festival (BEMF) is universally recognized as a leader in the field of early music. Since its founding in 1980 by leading practitioners of historical performance in the United States and abroad, BEMF has promoted early music through a variety of diverse programs and activities, including an annual concert series that brings early music’s brightest stars to the Boston and New York concert stages, and the biennial weeklong Festival and Exhibition, recognized as “the world’s leading festival of early music” (The Times, London).

Through its programs BEMF has earned its place as North America’s premier presenting organization for music of the Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque periods and has secured Boston’s reputation as “America’s early music capital” (Boston Globe).

In ter nati onal Ba ro qu e O p e ra One of BEMF’s main goals is to unearth and present lesser-known Baroque operas performed by the world’s leading musicians armed with the latest information on period singing, orchestral performance, scenic design, costuming, dance, and staging.

BEMF operas reproduce the Baroque’s stunning palette of sound by bringing together today’s leading operatic superstars and a wealth of instrumental talent from across the globe to one stage for historic presentations, all zestfully led from the pit by the BEMF Artistic Directors Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs, and creatively reimagined for the stage by BEMF Opera Director Gilbert Blin.

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The twenty-first biennial Boston Early Music Festival in June 2021 took place virtually, and featured a video presentation of André Campra’s extraordinary Le Carnaval de Venise from the June 2017 Festival. The twenty-second Festival, in June 2023, will have as its centerpiece Henry Desmarest’s 1694 opera Circé from a libretto by Louise-Geneviève Gillot de Saintonge, which will feature the Boston Early Music Festival Dance Company, a troupe of dancers under the guidance of BEMF Dance Director Melinda Sullivan.

BEMF introduced its Chamber Opera Series during its annual concert season in 41

November 2008, with a performance of John Blow’s Venus and Adonis and MarcAntoine Charpentier’s Actéon. The series focuses on the wealth of chamber operas composed during the Baroque period, while providing an increasing number of local opera aficionados the opportunity to attend one of BEMF’s superb offerings.

Subsequent annual productions include George Frideric Handel’s Acis and Galatea, Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, combined performances of Charpentier’s La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers and La Couronne de Fleurs, Monteverdi’s Orfeo, a double bill of Pergolesi’s La serva padrona and Livietta e Tracollo, a production titled “Versailles” featuring Les Plaisirs de Versailles by Charpentier, Les Fontaines de Versailles by Michel-Richard de Lalande, and divertissements from Atys by Lully, and most recently Francesca Caccini’s Alcina, the first opera written by a woman. Acis and Galatea was revived and presented on a four-city North American Tour in early 2011, which included a performance at the American Handel Festival in Seattle, and in 2014, BEMF’s second North American Tour featured the Charpentier double bill from 2011.

Amanda Forsythe in BEMF’s 2014 production of Pergolesi’s La serva padrona Photo: Kathy Wittman

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BEMF has a well-established and highly successful project to record some of its groundbreaking work in the field of Baroque opera. The first three recordings in this series were all nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording, in 2005, 2007, and 2008: the 2003 Festival centerpiece Ariadne, by Johann Georg Conradi; Jean-Baptiste Lully’s Thésée; and the 2007 Festival opera, Lully’s Psyché, which was hailed by BBC Music Magazine as “superbly realized…magnificent.” In addition, the BEMF recordings of Lully’s Thésée and Psyché received Gramophone Award Nominations in the Baroque Vocal category in 2008 and 2009, respectively.

BEMF’s next three recordings on the German CPO label were drawn from its Chamber Opera Series: Charpentier’s Actéon, Blow’s Venus and Adonis, and a release of Charpentier’s La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers and La Couronne de Fleurs, which won the 2015 Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording and the 2015 Echo Klassik Opera Recording of the Year (17th/18th Century Opera).

Agostino Steffani’s Niobe, Regina di Tebe, featuring Philippe Jaroussky and Karina Gauvin, which was released in January 2015 on the Erato/Warner Classics label in conjunction with a seven-city, four-country European concert tour of the opera, has been nominated for a Grammy Award, was named Gramophone’s Recording of the Month for March 2015, is the 2015 Echo Klassik World Premiere Recording of the Year, and has received a 2015 Diapason d’Or de l’Année and a 2015 Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik. Handel’s Acis and Galatea was released in November 2015. In 2017, while maintaining the focus on Baroque opera, BEMF expanded the recording project to include other select Baroque vocal works: a new Steffani disc, Duets of Love and Passion, was released in B o s t on E ar ly Mus i c F est i val

September 2017 in conjunction with a sixcity North American tour, and a recording of Johann Sebastiani’s St. Matthew Passion was released in March 2018. Four Baroque opera releases followed in 2019 and 2020: a disc of Charpentier’s chamber operas Les Plaisirs de Versailles and Les Arts Florissants was released at the June 2019 Festival, and has been nominated for a Grammy Award; the 2013 Festival opera, Handel’s Almira, was released in late 2019, and received a Diapason d’Or. Lalande’s chamber opera Les Fontaines de Versailles was featured on a September 2020 release of the composer’s works; Christoph Graupner’s opera Antiochus und Stratonica was released in December 2020.

Ce leb r ate d C o n ce rt s

Some of the most thrilling musical moments at the biennial Festival occur during one of the dozen or more concerts presented around the clock, which always include the acclaimed Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra led by Orchestra Director Robert Mealy, and which often feature unique, once-in-a-lifetime collaborations and programs by the spectacular array of talent assembled for the Festival week’s events. In 1989, BEMF established an annual concert series bringing early music’s leading soloists and ensembles to the Boston concert stage to meet the growing demand for regular world-class performances of

early music’s beloved classics and newly discovered works. BEMF then expanded its concert series in 2006, when it extended its performances to New York City’s Gilder Lehrman Hall at the Morgan Library & Museum, providing “a shot in the arm for New York’s relatively modest early-music scene” (New York Times).

Wo r l d - fa m ou s E xh i b i tion

The nerve center of the biennial Festival, the Exhibition is the largest event of its kind in the United States, showcasing nearly one hundred early instrument makers, music publishers, service organizations, schools and universities, and associated colleagues. In 2013, Mozart’s own violin and viola were displayed at the Exhibition, in their first-ever visit to the United States.

Every other June, hundreds of professional musicians, students, and enthusiasts come from around the world to purchase instruments, restock their libraries, learn about recent musicological developments, and renew old friendships. For four days, they visit the Exhibition booths to browse, discover, and purchase, and attend the dozens of symposia, masterclasses, and demonstration recitals, all of which encourage a deeper appreciation of early music, and strengthen relationships between musicians, participants, and audiences.

A standing ovation for La storia di Orfeo in November 2019 Photo: Kathy Wittman

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B e c o me a F r i e n d o f t h e

Boson Early Music Fesival Revenue from ticket sales, even from a sold-out performance, accounts for less than half of the total cost of producing BEMF’s operas and concerts; the remainder is derived almost entirely from generous friends like you. With your help, we will be able to build upon the triumphs of the past, and continue to bring you thrilling performances by today’s finest Early Music artists.

Our membership organization, the Friends of the Boston Early Music Festival, includes donors from around the world. These individuals recognize the Festival’s need for further financial support in order to fulfill its aim of serving as a showcase for the finest talent in the field.

Please join the Friends of the Boston Early Music Festival by donating at one of several levels: • Friend • Partner • Associate • Patron • Guarantor • Benefactor • Leadership Circle • Artistic Director’s Circle • Festival Angel

$45 $100 $250 $500 $1,000 $2,500 $5,000 $10,000 $25,000

T hr ee way s t o g ive:

• Visit BEMF.org and click on “Give Now”.

• Call BEMF at 617-661-1812 to donate by telephone using your credit card • Mail your credit card information or a check (payable to BEMF) to Boston Early Music Festival, 43 Thorndike Street, Suite 302, Cambridge, MA 02141-1764

O t h e r way s t o sho w y our suppor t:

• Increase your philanthropic impact with a Matching Gift from your employer.

• Make a gift of appreciated stocks or bonds to BEMF. • Planned Giving allows you to support BEMF in perpetuity while achieving your financial goals.

• Direct your gift to a particular area that interests you with a Named Gift.

Questions? Please e-mail Kathleen Fay at kathy@bemf.org, or call the BEMF office at 617-661-1812. Thank you for your support!

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B o s t on E ar ly Mus i c F est i val

Friends of the

Boson Early Music Fesival

This list reflects donations received from July 1, 2020 to November 8, 2021 FESTIVAL ANGELS ($25,000 or more) Anonymous (2) Bernice K. & Ted† Chen Susan Donaldson David R. Elliott† Peter L. & Joan S. Faber Donald Goldstein David Halstead & Jay Santos George L. Hardman Glenn A. KnicKrehm Miles Morgan Susan L. Robinson Andrew Sigel, in memory of Richard Sigel & Carol Davis Joan Margot Smith

Marie-Pierre & Michael Ellmann Nicole Faulkner James A. Glazier Mr. & Mrs. Thomas G. MacCracken Heather Mac Donald Victor & Ruth McElheny Bill McJohn Ruth McKay & Don Campbell Hadley & Jeannette Reynolds Kenneth C. Ritchie & Paul T. Schmidt David & Marie Louise Scudder Keith S. Tóth & John B. Herrington III Will & Alexandra Watkins Christoph & Barbara† Wolff

ARTISTIC DIRECTORS’ CIRCLE ($10,000 or more) Anonymous (5) Annemarie Altman, in memory of Dave Cook Brit d’Arbeloff Susan Denison Ellen T. & John T. Harris Barbara & Amos Hostetter David M. Kozak & Anne Pistell Lorna E. Oleck Fritz Onion Nina & Timothy Rose Karen Tenney & Thomas Loring Donald E. Vaughan & Lee S. Ridgway

BENEFACTORS ($2,500 or more) Anonymous (3) Alan Brener Beth Brown, in memory of Walter R.J. Brown John A. Carey Robert & Elizabeth Carroll Joan & Frank Conlon Jean Fuller Farrington Kathleen Fay Lori Fay & Christopher Cherry John Felton & Marty Gottron Dr. Katherine Goodman Maarten Janssen & Rosan Kuhn-Daalmeijer Robert E. Kulp, Jr. Drs. Peter Libby & Beryl Benacerraf Mark & Mary Lunsford Maria van Kalken & Hal Winslow Anna Watkins

LEADERSHIP CIRCLE ($5,000 or more) Anonymous (2) Mary Briggs & John Krzywicki Diane & John Paul Britton Douglas M. & Aviva A. Brooks Katie & Paul Buttenwieser Tony Elitcher & Andrea Taras

GUARANTORS ($1,000 or more) Anonymous (4) Anonymous, in memory of Martha Davidson Judy Anderson & Tom Allen Jeffrey & Jennifer Allred, in memory of F. Williams Sarles

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Dee Dee & John Brinkema, in memory of our son, Bobby Brinkema Pamela & Lee Bromberg Susan Bronn David C. Brown David L. Brown, in memory of Larry Phillips Dinah Buechner-Vischer Carla Chrisfield & Benjamin D. Weiss Dr. Joseph Colofiore Linzee Coolidge Richard & Constance Culley Belden & Pamela Daniels Terry Decima Peter & Katie DeWolf Dorothy Ryan Fay Michael E. Fay Martin & Kathleen Fogle Peter B. & Harriette Griffin Phillip Hanvy Dr. Robert L. Harris Rebecca & Ronald Harris-Warrick H. Jan & Ruth H. Heespelink Michael Herz, in memory of Eric Herz James & Ina Heup Thomas & Sonja Ellingson Hout Ronald Karr Alan M. King Fran & Tom Knight Helen Kraus & Stephen Moody Amelia J. LeClair & Garrow Throop John Leen & Eileen Koven Catherine Liddell Shenkiat Lim Daniel† & Harriet Lindblom MAFAA William & Joan Magretta John S. Major & Valerie Steele Amy Meyer Marilyn Miller Robert Neer & Ann Eldridge John M. & Bettina A. Norton Keith Ohmart & Helen Chen 45

Clara M. & John S. O’Shea John R. Palys Neal J. Plotkin & Deborah Malamud Amanda & Melvyn Pond Alice Robbins & Walter Denny Jose M. Rodriguez & Richard A. Duffy Patsy Rogers Thomas & Loretto Roney Michael & Karen Rotenberg Kevin Ryan Suzanne Sarason Len & Louise Schaper Cynthia Siebert Dr. Glenn Sigl & Mr. John Self Raymond A. & Marilyn Smith Elizabeth Snow Catherine & Keith Stevenson David & Jean Stout, in honor of Kathy Fay Lisa Teot Adrian & Michelle Touw Peter Tremain Kathy H. Udall Reed & Peggy Ueda David H. Van Dyke, in memory of Janet E. Van Dyke Patrick Wallace & Laurie McNeil Peter J. Wender Sarah Chartener Whitehead Ellen & Arnold Zetcher PATRONS ($500 or more) Anonymous (8) Druid Errant D.T. Allan-Gorey Eric Hall Anderson Barry & Sarita Ashar Laila Awar Louise Basbas Jeffrey Bauman Seth Boorstein, in memory of Joan Boorstein Patricia Boyd Elizabeth A.R. & Ralph S. Brown, Jr., in honor of Kathleen Fay Julie Brown & Zachary Morowitz James D. Burr Robert Burton & Karen Peterson Elizabeth Canick Eleanor Anne Carlson David J. Chavolla Dr. & Mrs. Franklyn W. Commisso 46

Joseph & Françoise Connors Martina Crocker, in memory of William T. Crocker Paul & Elizabeth De Rosa Carl E. Dettman JoAnne Walter Dickinson Alan Durfee John W. Ehrlich David Emery & Olimpia Velez Thomas G. Evans Charles Fisk & Louis Risoli Claire Anne Fontijn Lloyd Foster Elizabeth French Frederick & Barbara Gable Bruce A. Garetz Sarah M. Gates David & Harriet Griesinger Martha Gruson Eric Haas, in memory of Janet Haas Hope Hare Joan E. Hartman Jasjit & Donald L. Heckathorn Mary Hepburn, in honor of Laura Jeppesen Jennifer L. Hochschild & C. Anthony Broh Linda Hodgkinson Beth F. Houston George Humphrey Jean Jackson, in memory of Louis Kampf Judith L. Johnston & Bruce L. Bush, in memory of Daniel Lindblom Marietta B. Joseph Barry Kernfeld & Sally McMurry Wilfred & Leslie Kling Neal & Catherine Konstantin Robert & Mary La Porte Frederick V. Lawrence, in memory of Rosemarie Lawrence Joanne & Carl Leaman Clare Walker Leslie & David Leslie James Liu & Alexandra Bowers Dr. Gary Ljungquist Kenneth Loveday Dr. & Mrs. Bruce C. MacIntyre Quinn MacKenzie Jeffrey & Barbara Mandula Anne & William McCants Michael P. McDonald

Thomas Michie Alan & Kathy Muirhead Joan L. Nissman & Morton Abromson William J. Pananos Henry Paulus Julia Poirier, in memory of Marc Poirier Tracy Powers Harold I. Pratt Susan Pundt Paul Rabin & Arlene Snyder Anne & Dennis Rogers Carlton & Lorna Russell Irwin Sarason, in memory of Barbara Sarason Valerie Sarles Clemens & Bonnie Schoenebeck Charles & Mary Ann Schultz Neil & Bonnie Schutzman Wendy Shattuck & Sam Plimpton Chuck Sheehan Michael Sherer David Shukis & Susan Blair Campbell Steward Ronald W. Stoia Theresa & Charles Stone Ralph & Jeanine Swick, in memory of Judie & Alan Kotok Nancy M. Tooney Peter & Kathleen Van Demark David Vargo & Sheila Collins Delores & Robert Viarengo Geoffrey Westergaard, in memory of David Eisler Michael Wise & Susan Pettee Kathleen Wittman & Melanie Andrade ASSOCIATES ($250 or more) Anonymous (15) Jonathan B. Aibel & Julie I. Rohwein David A. & Connie D. Allred, in memory of F. Williams Sarles Helen Mae Allred & Sandy Grimmett, in memory of F. Williams Sarles Nicholas Altenbernd Brian P. & Debra K.S. Anderson Neil R. Ayer, Jr. Lois Banta Mary Baughman William & Ann Bein Helen Benham B o s t on E ar ly Mus i c F est i val

Sally & Charlie Boynton Andrew J. Buckler Carlo Buonomo Frederick Byron Anne Chalmers & Holly Gunner, in honor of Kathy Fay & the BEMF Staff Mary Chamberlain Peter Charig & Amy Briemer Alex M. Chintella Floyd & Aleeta Christian Daniel Church & Roger Cuevas John K. Clark & Judith M. Stoughton Drs. Martin & Janet Cohen Sherryl & Gerard Cohen Edward L. Corbosiero Derek Cottier & Lauren Tilly Mary Cowden Geoffrey Craddock Christopher Curdo Bruce Davidson Elizabeth C. Davis Robert Dennis Katharine B. Desai Mr. & Mrs. Dennis Dewitt Michael DiSabatino, in honor of Charles DiSabatino & Nancy Olson Ellen Dokton & Stephen Schmidt Charles & Sheila Donahue Tamar & Jeremy Kaim Doniger John F. Dooley Mark Elenko Charles & Elizabeth Emerson Susan Fairchild & Jeff Buxbaum Austin & Eileen Farrar Gregg, Abby & Max Feigelson Janet G. Fink Kent Flummerfelt, in memory of Jane Flummerfelt Gary Freeman Sarah French Jonathan Friedes & Qian Huang Sandy Gadsby & Nancy Brown Anne & Walter Gamble Stephen L. Gencarello Barbara Godard Lorraine & William Graves Joseph & Elizabeth Hare G. Neil & Anne Harper Roderick J. Holland Jessica Honigberg 2 021–20 22 Seaso n

Jane Hoover John Hsia Alex Humez Charles Bowditch Hunter Francesco Iachello Laura Jeppesen & Daniel Stepner Paul & Alice Johnson Robin Johnson David K. Jordan Patrick G. Jordan Lorraine Kaimal, in memory of Jagadish C. Kaimal Elizabeth Kaplan Robert Kauffman & Susan Porter Louis & Susan Kern Peggy Kimball Robert L. Kleinberg George Kocur Kathryn Kucharski Joseph Kung Katharine Kush Bruce Larkin Tom Law Jasper Lawson Sarah Leaf-Herrmann William & Betsy Leitch Diana Lempel Philip Le Quesne Alison Leslie Susan Lewinnek Ricardo & Marla Lewitus, in honor of Hans Lewitus Lawrence & Susan Liden Joan Lippincott Roger & Susan Lipsey Robert & Janice Locke Rodolfo Machado & Jorge Silvetti Peter G. Manson & Peter A. Durfee Marietta Marchitelli Carol Marsh Carol & Pedro Martinez Anne H. Matthews June Matthews James McBride Lee McClelland Randall E. & Karen Moore Rodney & Barbara Myrvaagnes Lindsay & Mark Nelsen Nancy Nicholson Caroline Niemira Nancy Olson & Charles Di Sabatino Louise Oremland

John & Sandra Owens Cosmo & Jane Papa Eugene Papa David & Beth Pendery Joseph L. Pennacchio Pauline & Mark Peters Bici Pettit-Barron The Hon. W. Glen Pierson Anne & François Poulet Rodney J. Regier Sandy Reismann & Dr. Nanu Brates Michael Robbins Marge Roberts Liz & David Robertson Sherry & William Rogers Ellen Rosand Alison & Jeff Rosenberg, in honor of Martha Gottron & John Felton Lois Rosow Nancy & Ronald Rucker Paul Rutz & Sandra Henry Catherine & Phil Saines Joanne Zervas Sattley Lynne & Ralph Schatz Raymond Schmidt & Stephen Skuce Robert & Barbara Schneider Robert & Ann Schoeller Helen Schultz Alison M. Scott Michael & Marcy Scott-Morton Bettina Siewert, M.D. & Douglas L. Teich, M.D. Alexander Silbiger Mark Slotkin Jospeh Spector & Dale Mayer Louisa C. Spottswood Paola Stone Carl Swanson Jonathan Swartz Kenneth P. Taylor Suzanne G. Teich Lonice Thomas Mark S. Thurber & Susan M. Galli Edward P. Todd Donald Twomey & Michael Davison Dr. Tyler J. Vanderweele Robert Volante Mary E. Wheat Barbara K. Wheaton Allan & Joann Winkler 47

Donald G. & Jane C. Workman Susan Wyatt Ellen L. Ziskind PARTNERS ($100 or more) Anonymous (26) Andrew Adler Joseph Aieta III Thomas Albanese Kenneth Allen & Hugh Russell Thomas Allen Cathy & William Anderson Robert Anderson Julie Andrijeski & J. Tracy Mortimore Laurie Andrus Jeffrey Angell Renee Ashley Katrina Avery & Thomas Doeppner Susan P. Bachelder Antonia L. Banducci Tim Barber & Joel Krajewski Dr. David Barnert & Julie A. Raskin Jim & Judy Barr Arthur & Susan Barsky Rev. Joseph & Nancy Bassett Alan Bates & Michele Mandrioli Joseph Baxer & Barbara Anne Bacewicz Trevor & Dax Bayard-Murray Elaine Beilin & Robert Brown Lawrence Bell Aliesha Bennett Susan Benua Elliot Beraha Nadine Berenguier & Bernd Widdig John C. Berg & Martha E. Richmond Noel & Paula Berggren Judith Bergson Michael & Sheila Berke Elaine Bianco William Birdsall John Birks Barbara R. Bishop Sarah Bixler & Christopher Tonkin Katharine C. Black Marylynn Boris Richard Borts Ann Boyer Katherine Bracher, in memory of Margriet Tindemans Susan Brainerd 48

Spyros Braoudakis Susan Brefach & Don Estes Derick & Jennifer Brinkerhoff Catherine & Hillel Shahan Bromberg Amy Brown & Brian Carr Margaret H. Brown Nevin C. Brown Caroline Bruzelius L.T. Bryan John H. Burkhalter III Susan H. Bush Kevin J. Bylsma Pauline Ho Bynum Lisa Cacciabaudo Nicholas Calapa John Caldwell Daniela Cammack Shannon Canavin & Kevin Goodrich Dennis J. & Barbara Carboni James & Angela Carrington R. Cassels-Brown Verne & Madeline Caviness, in honor of Hildegard von Bingen Joanne Chernow Edward Clark & Joan Pritchard John Clark Alan Clayton-Matthews Joel I. Cohen & Anne Azéma Maria & Charles Coldwell Matthew Coleman Lois Evelyn Conley, in memory of Philip R. Conley Dorothea Cook & Peter Winkler Peter B. Cook Rita & Norman Corey, in honor of Jeanne Crowgey Robert Cornell Nelson Correa Mary C. Coward & John Empey Dan & Sidnie Crawford David Croll & Lynne Ausman Katherine Crosier, in memory of Carl C. Crosier Ruth Cross Edwina J. Cruise Daniel Curtis Warren R. Cutler James Cyphers Matthew Dahl Gilbert Daniels Eric & Margaret Darling

Ruta Daugela Karen Davis, in honor of Amanda Forsythe Carl & May Daw Mr. & Mrs. Patrick Day, Esq. Leigh Deacon Kate Delaney Ellen R. Delany Judith & Robert DeIasi Jeffrey Del Papa Deborah & Forrest Dillon Sarah Dillon & Peter Kantor Kathryn Disney Mark Dodd & Linda Brock Charles & Beverly Donohue Annette I. Dorsky Diane L. Droste Priscilla Drucker Laura Duffy Rev. S. Blake Duncan John Dunton & Carol McKeen Robert Echols Philip & Deborah Edmundson Ms. Helen A. Edwards Charles Epstein Jane Epstein Jake Esher Laureen Esser Richard Fabian Susan Farr Lila M. Farrar Marilyn Farwell Peter Fejer Grace A. Feldman, in memory of J.P. Feldman Kevin Feltz Janine Ferretti Robert & Janeth Filgate Carol L. Fishman Jocelyn Forbush Deborah Fox & Ron Epstein Lillian Fraker Matthew P. Fraleigh Friends R. Andrew Garthwaite William Gasperini Dr. Aisling Gaughan & Kent Russel Thatcher Lane Gearhart Ronald & Gisela Geiger Gary Gengo David & Susan Gerstein Hans Gesell B o s t on E ar ly Mus i c F est i val

Susan Goldhor, in memory of Aron Bernstein Diane Goldsmith Nancy L. Graham Kim T. Grant Frances Gratz Bruce, Margaret & Sarah Graver John C. Gray Jr. Winifred Gray Ellen & James Green Mary Greer Margaret Griffin & Roger Weiss Thomas H. & Lori B. Griswold John Gruver & Lynn Tilley Christine Guth Joshua Guttman Richard & Les Hadsell Harry & Sharen Hafner Susannah Halston Suzanne & Easley Hamner Benjamin F. Harris David J. Harris, MD Jill B. Hartman Barbara & Samuel L. Hayes III Deborah Healey Diane Hellens Karin Hemmingsen Elizabeth Durfee Hengen Catherine & John Henn Steve Herbert & Ursula Ziegler Olmo Heredia-Blanco Katherine A. Hesse Raymond Hirschkop John & Olivann Hobbie Ellsworth Hood, in memory of Margaret Hood Victoria Hoover Sterling & Margaret Hopkins Margaret Hornick Valerie Horst & Benjamin Peck David Howlett Chris Marie R. Hudson Keith & Catherine B. Hughes Michelle Humphreys Priscilla Hunt & Victor Lesser Charles & Nan Husbands, in honor of Paul O’Dette Willemien Insinger Charlotte Isaacs Deborah L. Jameson Susan Jaster & Ishmael Stefanov-Wagner 2 021–20 22 Seaso n

Dian Kahn Robert & Susan Kaim Joan Kapfer & Michael Jorrin Ward Keeler Alison Kelley Roger & Mary Jane Kelsey Joseph J. Kesselman, Jr. David Kessler David P. Kiaunis John R. Kimball Jeremy Kindall Leslie & Kimberly King Naomi Reed Kline Carol & Arnold Klukas Sara M. Knight Christine Kodis Crystal Komm Scott-Martin Kosofsky & Betsy Sarles Ellen Kranzer Benjamin Krepp & Virginia Webb Barbara & Paul Krieger Katherine Krueger Jan Krzywicki & Susan Nowicki Robert G. Kunzendorf & Elizabeth A. Ritvo David Laibstain Dennis G. Lamser Charles E. Larmore Stephen J. Leahy Rob & Mary Joan Leith Drs. Lynne & Sid Levitsky Michael Lew Calien Lewis & Martha Mickles Ellen R. Lewis Susan & Walter Lichtenstein Marcia & Philip Lieberman Rebecca Lightcap Signe Lindberg Jose & Rebecca Lora Liz Loveland Daniel Lynch & Elaine Dow Deidre Lynch Sandra & David Lyons Mary Maarbjerg Mary Malloy & Stuart Frank Thomas & Susan Mancuso Douglas & Amanda Maple Judith Mason Sally Mayer Donna McCampbell Dr. & Mrs. James R. McCarty, in memory of William R. Dowd

Peter McCormick Kathleen McDougald George McKee Sharon McKinley Dave & Jeannette McLellan Cynthia Merritt Gerald & Susan Metz Ruth Milburn George D. & Barbara A. Miller Margo Miller Mary Lou Miller Myron Miller Nicolas Minutillo Nathaniel & Judith Mishkin Robert C. Mitchell David Montanari & Sara Rubin Martha Morton Wes & Sandy Mott, in memory of Harry Nargiss Mouatta Lynn Mulheron Seanan Murphy Myrna Nachman Debra Nagy, in honor of Kathy Fay Paul & Rebecca Nemser Arthur Ness & Charlotte Kolczynski Katharine Newhouse Amy Nicholls Jeffrey Nicolich Nancy Nuzzo Karen Oakley & John Merrick Herbert G. Ogden & Catherine Thomas Clifford & Frances Olsen Monika Otter David & Claire Oxtoby Kevin Oye & June Hsiao Gene & Cheryl Pace Robert Parker Beth Parkhurst, in memory of Cheryl M. Parkhurst Susan Patrick Susan Patrick, in memory of Don Partridge Sally & Rand Peabody Jim Pendleton John Petrowsky Rebecca Petteys Andrea Phan, in memory of Charlie Phan Elizabeth V. Phillips Lys McLaughlin Pike 49

Mary Platt Gene & Margaret Pokorny Theodore Popoff & Dorothy Silverstein Charles & Elizabeth Possidente Stephen Poteet & Anne Kao Susanne & John Potts Dr. Olena Prokopovych Virginia Raguin, in memory of Christopher Chieffo Christa Rakich & Janis Milroy Sarah & Eben Rauhut Sandra Ray John & Sue Reed Ruth E. Reiner Emery & Joyce Rice Arthur & Elaine Robins Sue Robinson Richard Rodgers Michael Rogan & Hugh Wilburn Paul A. Rosenberg & Harriet C. Moss Peter & Linda Rubenstein Lisa & Gary Rucinski Rusty Russell James V. Ryan Cheryl K. Ryder Kate Salfelder Susan Sargent & Tom Peters Josef Schmee David Schneider & Klára Móricz Raymond Schneider Fred Scholz Elly Schottman Michael Schreiner Richard Schroeder & Jane Burns Mr. & Mrs. Lynn Schultz Peter Schuntermann Susan Schuur Judith Arlene Schwantes Joyce Schwartz Jeffrey Schwotzer Janet Scudder & Carl Fristrom Jean Seiler Maureen Shea Terry Shea & Seigo Nakao Ann Shedd & Mark Meess Kathy Sherrick Marilyn Shesko Kazuki Shintani Daniel & Ruth Shoskes Barbara Sidley, in memory of Nathan T. Sidley 50

Michael & Rena Silevitch Harvey A. Silverglate, in memory of Elsa Dorfman Hana Sittler Sandra Sizer John & Carolyn Skelton Ellen & Jay Sklar Elliott Smith & Wendy Gilmore Gregory Smith Jim Smith & Joan Miller David Snead & Kate Prescott Jon Solins Piroska Soos Gabriella Spatolisano Kathleen Moretto Spencer Joseph & Kelley Spoerl Scott Sprinzen George Stalker & Jean Keskulla Douglas Steely & Palma Bickford Bruce Steiner Ann Stewart Mary Stokey Helen Stott Elliott & Barbara Strizhak Alan & Caroline Strout Imogene A. Stulken & Bruce Brolsma Jacek & Margaret Sulanowski Ronald Suleski Bob & Eileen Sullivan Richard & Louise Sullivan Jack Summers Ganesh & Monika Sundaram Timothy Swain Margaret W. Taft, in memory of Seymour Hayden Jocelyn R. Tager, Ph.D. & Michael Fredrickson Ryan Taliaferro Lee & Judith Talner Richard Tarrant Eleanor H. Tejirian Lisa Terry John Thier, in honor of Essential Workers Judith Ogden Thomson Donald Trageser Pierre Trepagnier & Louise Mundinger John & Dorothy Truman Joseph Tulchin, in memory of Kate Heery Tulchin John & Anne Turtle Judy von Loewe

Richard & Virginia von Rueden Mandy Waddell & Irene Cramer Robert & Therese Wagenknecht Rosemary Waldrop Marian M. Warden Prof. Eldon L. Wegner Thomas & LeRose Weikert Esther Weinstein Ronald Weintraub The Westner Family Peter White Susan & Thomas Wilkes David L. Williamson Dr. & Mrs. Randall S. Winn Charlotte Lindgren Winslow, in honor of Hal Winslow Irene Winter & Robert Hunt John H. Wolff & Helen A. Berger Renate Wolter-Seevers Jeff & Lisa Woodruff John H. & Susan Yost Kurt-Alexander Zeller † deceased FOUNDATIONS & CORPORATE SPONSORS Anonymous (2) Aequa Foundation American Endowment Foundation Applied Technology Investors BNY Mellon Charitable Gift Fund Bank of America Charitable Gift Fund The Barrington Foundation, Inc. The Bel-Ami Foundation The Boston Foundation Boston Private Bank & Trust Company Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Inc. Gregory E. Bulger Foundation Burns & Levinson LLP The Catherine and Paul Buttenwieser Foundation Cabot Family Charitable Trust Cambridge Community Foundation Cambridge Trust Company Cedar Tree Foundation Cembaloworks of Washington City of Cambridge The Columbus Foundation Community Foundation of Western MA B os t on E ar ly Mus i c F est i val

Connecticut Community Foundation Constellation Charitable Foundation The Fannie Cox Foundation The Crawford Foundation CRB Classical 99.5, a GBH station The Dusky Fund at Essex County Community Foundation Eastern Bank Charitable Foundation Fidelity Charitable Fiduciary Trust Charitable French Cultural Center / Alliance Française of Boston Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation GlaxoSmithKline Foundation Goethe-Institut Boston The Goldman Sachs Philanthropy Fund The Florence Gould Foundation GTC Law Group Haber Family Charitable Foundation Hausman Family Charitable Trust The High Meadow Foundation Houghton Mifflin Harcourt The Isaacson-Draper Foundation The Richard and Natalie Jacoff Foundation, Inc. Jewish Communal Fund Key Biscayne Community Foundation Konstantin Family Foundation Maine Community Foundation Makromed, Inc. Massachusetts Cultural Council Mastwood Foundation Morgan Stanley

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National Endowment for the Arts Newstead Foundation Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation The Packard Humanities Institute The Mattina R. Proctor Foundation REALOGY Corporation The Saffeir Family Fund of the Maine Community Foundation Scofield Auctions, Inc. Schwab Charitable The Seattle Foundation Shalon Fund TIAA Charitable Giving Fund Program The Trust for Mutual Understanding The Tzedekah Fund at Combined Jewish Philanthropies The Upland Farm Fund U.S. Small Business Administration U.S. Trust/Bank of America Private Wealth Management Vanguard Charitable Walker Family Trust at Fidelity Charitable Marian M. Warden Fund of The Foundation for Enhancing Communities The Windover Foundation MATCHING CORPORATIONS 21st Century Fox Allegro MicroSystems Amazon Smile AmFam

Analog Devices Aspect Global Automatic Data Processing, Inc. Biogen Carrier Global Dell, Inc. Exelon Foundation FleetBoston Financial Corporation Genentech, Inc. Google Grantham, Mayo, van Otterloo & Co. LLC John Hancock Financial Services, Inc. Community Gifts Through Harvard University Houghton Mifflin Harcourt IBM Corporation Intel Foundation Investment Technology Group, Inc. (ITG) Microsoft Corporation MLE Foundation, Inc. Natixis Global Asset Management Novartis US Foundation NVIDIA Pfizer Pitney Bowes Salesforce.org Silicon Valley Community Foundation Takeda Tetra Tech United Technologies Corporation Verizon Foundation Xerox Foundation

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“This is a

ne” o t s e il m y r o t la e rev e ramophon —G

George Frideric Handel

Almira

ALSO AVAILABLE

Boson Early Music Fesival

Paul O’Dette & Stephen Stubbs, Musical Directors

I n t ern atio n ally Award- Winning

Opera CDs

O RD E R To d ay at BE MF.O RG 52

B o s t on E ar ly Mus i c F est i val

AMHERST EARLY MUSIC Festival ! Classes ! Concerts Music Publications ! Lectures

AMHERST EARLY MUSIC FESTIVAL 2022 August 7-21, 2022 in Bethlehem, PA, at Northampton Community College Two weeks of classes for most instruments, voice, historical dance, and early notation. Programs include Baroque Academy, and Baroque Opera directed by Grant Herreid and Julianne Baird, Choral Workshop with Kent Tritle, Ensemble Singing Intensive with Michael Barrett, and New London Assembly with Brad Foster and Cécile Laye. Concert Series at the Lipkin Theater.

Check our website for details and updates! We hope you'll join us!

Recorder virtuoso Saskia Coolen in performance at the 2019 AEMF

amherstearlymusic.org