Monteverdi Choir & Orchestras - Projects 2023

SUPPORT OUR 2023 PROJECTS

Berlioz - L’Enfance du Christ – December 2021 – Paul Marc Mitchell

2023 marks John Eliot Gardiner’s 80th birthday. We look forward to celebrating our Founder and Artistic Director’s impressive achievements alongside the triumphs of our ensembles: the Monteverdi Choir, English Baroque Soloists and Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique through significant projects, including J.S. Bach – Mass in B minor, Berlioz – Les Troyens, Handel - L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato and a spectacular documentary showcasing Monteverdi’s life through sacred and secular music.

John Eliot Gardiner is revered as one of the world’s most innovative and dynamic musicians. His work with the Monteverdi Choir (MVC), English Baroque Soloists (EBS) and Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique (ORR), has marked him out as a key figure both in the early music revival and as a revelatory conductor of an exceptionally broad range of music.

Monteverdi Choir & Orchestras’ internationally renowned ensembles all share in the distinctive vision of John Eliot Gardiner to bring fresh perspectives, immediacy, and drama to performances around the world. Our world-class musicians specialise in intimate chamber music, sacred works, and semi-staged operas.

This year we celebrate the individual and collective accomplishments of John Eliot Gardiner and our critically acclaimed ensembles over many years. We also celebrate our ongoing work to engage international audiences and support our outstanding musicians through ground-breaking projects, which keep the art of historical-inspired performance alive.

In the year we celebrate John Eliot Gardiner’s 80th birthday, help us to realise our landmark tours by pledging your support as a partner in our projects.

Producing international tours, prestigious broadcasts and documentaries of the highest quality will leave a significant gap in our funds. Sponsor our projects, and join an exclusive group of like-minded individuals who share a passion for delivering projects at the highest artistic levels.

The following brochure provides a summary of each of our landmark projects this year.

If you would like to discuss how you could support us, please contact bryony@monteverdi.org.uk or development@monteverdi.org.uk to arrange a discussion with our Fundraising Manager, Bryony Benstead or our General Director, Dr Rosa Solinas.

BACH - MASS IN B MINOR

6-24 APRIL 2023

MONTEVERDI CHOIR | ENGLISH BAROQUE SOLOISTS | JOHN ELIOT GARDINER

Performances - April - October 2023

Thursday 6 April - 7.30pm

Sage Gateshead, Gateshead

Saturday 8 April - 7.00pm

Château de Versailles, Versailles

Tuesday 11 April - 8.00pm

Palau de la Música, Barcelona

Thursday 13 April - 8.00pm

Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg

Saturday 15 April - 8.00pm

Bozar, Brussels

Monday 17 April - 8.00pm

Philharmonie, Luxembourg

Tuesday 18 April - 8.00pm

Alte Oper, Frankfurt am Main

Monday 24 April - 7.30pm

St Martin-in-the-Fields, London

Friday 20 October - 7.30pm

Harris Theater, Chicago

Wednesday 25 October - 8.00pm

Carnegie Hall, New York City

J.S. Bach’s Mass in B minor is revered as one of the pinnacles of Western music, so it is only fitting that we commence John Eliot’s 80th birthday celebrations with a European tour of this significant work.

John Eliot Gardiner is considered one of the greatest living interpreters of J.S. Bach. His in-depth knowledge of Bach following a lifetime’s immersion has marked him out as a key figure in the most recent Bach scholarship. His book, Music in the Castle of Heaven: A Portrait of Johann Sebastian Bach, was published in 2013 to critical acclaim.

Bach put his Mass together at the end of his life, perhaps mindful of creating a lasting legacy, taking inspiration from pieces he had written in the previous decades and welding them together with new music, creating a compendium of all the different styles and approaches that he had taken during 30 or 40 years of music-making.

In his setting of the Latin text of the mass, Bach’s resolve was not merely to mime the gestures of belief, and to interpret doctrine via the music of his own invention, but to extend the very range of music’s possibilities and through such exploration to make sense of the world in which he lived and whatever lay beyond it.

From the opening collective cry of ‘Kyrie’, to the winding fugues and ultimate radiance of ‘Dona nobis pacem’, the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists will reveal all the variety of a work which encompasses wild virtuosity, immeasurable pathos and exuberant joy. John Eliot Gardiner’s recordings (1985 and 2015) are regularly cited as benchmarks, revealing a changing approach to a work which rewards infinite exploration.

Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists – December 2022 – Paul Marc Mitchell

JOURNEY THROUGH MONTEVERDI’S ITALY

JUNE 2023

MONTEVERDI CHOIR | ENGLISH BAROQUE SOLOISTS | JOHN ELIOT GARDINER

Claudio Monteverdi and our ensembles

Composer Claudio Monteverdi has been central to our organisation for 60 years. John Eliot Gardiner has been a pioneering figure in the revival of Monteverdi, breathing new life into little-known repertoire and giving Monteverdi his rightful place on international concert and opera stages.

In 2017, to mark the 450th anniversary of the birth of Monteverdi, the Monteverdi Choir, English Baroque Soloists and an exemplary cast of world-class singers performed the composer’s three surviving operas: L’Orfeo, L’incoronazione di Poppea & Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria. The Monteverdi 450 Project, which was awarded the prestigious Royal Philharmonic Society Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera, was preceded by a series of workshops under the auspices of the Fondazione Giorgio Cini in Venice and culminated with a site-specific itinerant concert at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

In 2019, Monteverdi Choir & Orchestras realised a critically acclaimed series of podcasts to explore the role of Monteverdi within the tumultuous cultural environment of the early 17th century.

Andrea Mantegna (1431–1506), Camera degli Sposi, Palazzo Ducale, Mantua, Italy.

June 2023

Documentary - Journey through Monteverdi’s Italy

This summer we return to Italy to pay homage to Claudio Monteverdi through a landmark project, exploring the composer’s life and showcasing his sacred and secular music in richly evocative venues. The project will be filmed and broadcast as a documentary guided by John Eliot Gardiner’s narrative to bring to life imaginary dialogues between Monteverdi and his contemporaries: Caravaggio, Bernini and Titian.

We anticipate this prestigious documentary will be broadcast on Stage +, RAI and Arte. Filming will commence with behind-the-scenes footage at Monteverdi Castiglioncello del Trinoro, Tuscany during rehearsals and workshops, before we travel to significant sites during Monteverdi’s life.

Monteverdi in Rome – Galleria Borghese

By performing in the Galleria Borghese in Rome, we are taking Monteverdi on an imaginary journey, bringing alive Monteverdi’s music alongside the artworks of Caravaggio, Bernini and Titian. It is thought that Monteverdi made an incognito trip to Rome for an interview prior to developing his career in Venice. John Eliot Gardiner’s narrative will explore an imaginary dialogue between Monteverdi and his contemporaries should they have met and worked together in Rome.

Venice: Monteverdi’s sacred music beside his tomb

Travelling to Venice gives us a special opportunity to pay homage to the final years of Monteverdi’s life, which he spent as Maestro di Cappella at the Basilica San Marco. We will be performing a programme of sacred music at the Basilica dei Frari, the church where Monteverdi is buried. Works from the composer’s Selva Morale collection (including the beloved Beatus vir) and his late Messa quattro voci (Mass for four voices) will bloom in this wonderful venue, which is home to artistic masterpieces by Titian, Donatello and Bellini. Performing beside Monteverdi’s tomb will be a highlight of the tour and fulfil a life-long dream of John Eliot Gardiner.

Monteverdi in Mantua: Jewels of the 4th, 6th and 8th books of madrigals

This performance in the Galleria degli specchi in the Ducal palace in Mantua will offer an exceptional opportunity to hear Monteverdi’s music in the home of the Gonzaga family. The Dukes of Mantua were patrons of some of the greatest poets, artists and musicians in Europe in the 16th and early 17th centuries, from Bellini and Mantegna to Rubens and Tasso. It was in their palace that Monteverdi composed and performed some of his greatest works, including his first opera L’Orfeo. The music performed will include Monteverdi’s settings of texts by poets directly connected with the Mantuan court, including Ottavio Rinuccini and Scipione Agnelli, as well as Petrarch, the father of Italian humanism himself.

Monteverdi in Cremona - Sacred works

Monteverdi’s final major publications of music, his Selva morale e spirituale (1640-41) and Messa e Salmi (published posthumously in 1650) gather the greatest sacred works he composed in the final decades of his life. These richly varied pieces include works for choir, as well as for solo voices and madrigalian meditations on the frailty of life. They also reveal the close connections between the sacred and the profane: the tragic Pianto della Madonna is a sacred version of the heroine’s lament from Monteverdi’s second opera, L’Arianna

Public Performance – Sunday 25 June 2023 – Chiesa di Sant’Agostino, Cremona

We will bring these impassioned and serene late works to the church of Sant’Agostino in Cremona, the town where the composer was born, for a performance on the last night of the 2023 Monteverdi Festival.

Supporters of Monteverdi Choir & Orchestras and the public will be able to attend this concert.

BERLIOZ - LES TROYENS

26 AUGUST - 4 SEPTEMBER 2023

MONTEVERDI CHOIR | ORCHESTRE RÉVOLUTIONNAIRE ET ROMANTIQUE | JOHN ELIOT GARDINER

Current performances on sale

Saturday 26 August 2023 - 5:00 pm

Salzburger Festspiele, Grosses Festspielhaus

Friday 1 September 2023 - 5:00 pm

Philharmonie Berlin, Großer Saal

More concert dates at prestigious festivals will be announced soon.

Programme:

Hector Berlioz – Les Troyens

Cast

Cassandra - Alice Coote, mezzo

Énée - Michael Spyres, tenor

Didon - Paula Murrihy, mezzo

Chorèbe - Lionel Lhote, baritone

Ascagne - Adèle Charvet, mezzo

Narbal - William Thomas, bass

Panthée - Ashley Riches, bass-baritone

Anna - Beth Taylor, mezzo

Iopas & Hylas - Laurence Kilsby, tenor

Hécube - Rebecca Evans, soprano

This summer, in celebration of John Eliot Gardiner’s 80th birthday, the Monteverdi Choir, Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, alongside outstanding soloists, perform Berlioz’s Les Troyens at Europe’s most prestigious festivals.

John Eliot Gardiner has been instrumental in putting Hector Berlioz back on centre stage. With few of Berlioz’s works performed in the late 19th-20th centuries, John Eliot Gardiner has helped audiences to understand the unsung genius of this French romantic composer.

The Monteverdi Choir and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique last performed Berlioz’s Les Troyens in 2003, on Berlioz’s bicentenary, at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris – the first time the opera had been performed in Paris in its entirety. Now, twenty years on, we are joined by an energising international cast for performances throughout Europe.

‘It is the sheer courage of Berlioz’s vision for his great opera that I find so impressive and so touching. On every page of his score, Berlioz shows himself to be a far-sighted observer of people and of the human condition, and on every page, he reveals his complete mastery of orchestral timbres-the individual colour of each instrument. The originality of his orchestration is accentuated by using instruments of his day. From start to finish, Les Troyens contains music that is heart-rendingly truthful and ageless in its epic sweep. Be prepared to be moved!’ – John Eliot Gardiner

Berlioz’s idea for an opera about the Trojan War and its aftermath has its roots in his childhood. The composer’s father used to read Virgil’s Aeneid to him, urging him to learn a few verses by heart every day; Berlioz was even given the name of the Trojan hero, Hector.

‘I have spent my life in the company of these demi-gods; I know them so well that I imagine they know me,’ Berlioz wrote to his friend Princess Sayn-Wittgenstein, who encouraged him to take on the monumental task of composing the opera. Les Troyens is Berlioz’s most ambitious work, the summation of his entire artistic career. It begins with the capture of Troy by the Greeks, as foretold by Cassandra, and ends with the death of Dido, the queen of Carthage, after her unhappy love affair with the Trojan, Aeneas.

Berlioz - L’Enfance du Christ – December 2021 – Paul Marc Mitchell

HANDEL - L’ALLEGRO, IL PENSEROSO ED IL MODERATO

OCTOBER 2023

MONTEVERDI CHOIR | ENGLISH BAROQUE SOLOISTS | JOHN ELIOT GARDINER

Current performances on sale

Saturday 21 October 2023 - 7.30pm

Harris Theater, Chicago

Thursday 26 October 2023 - 7.30pm

Carnegie Hall, New York City

Tuesday 31 October 2023 - 7.30pm

St Martin-in-the-Fields, London

More concert dates at prestigious venues will be announced soon.

Programme:

Handel - L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato

Our 2023 season, celebrating John Eliot Gardiner’s 80th birthday through iconic projects, culminates with a sensational tour to the US. The Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists will perform Handel’s pastoral ode L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato alongside J.S. Bach’s Mass in B Minor - one of the pinnacles of Western music. The tour will culminate with a performance of Handel’s L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato in our London home, St Martin-in-the-Fields.

Claude Lorrain: Pastoral Landscape 1677

Handel’s secular work is one of his most inventive, varied and characteristically English works evoking contrasting emotions of the human condition, which creates a synergy of Enlightenment reason.

‘The sympathy with English life, English music and the English landscape, both rural and urban, makes L’Allegro the greatest tribute Handel ever paid to the land of his adoption.’ John Eliot Gardiner

As a farmer passionate about the English Countryside, there is no one more suited to conduct Handel’s L’Allegro, il Penseroso et il Moderato than John Eliot Gardiner. Last recorded by the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists in 1981, we look forward to bringing a fresh perspective to this significant work.

L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato (1740) is one of Handel’s most unusual works. Despite its Italian title, it uses a completely English text, much of it written a century earlier by the 22-year-old poet John Milton, to explore the contrasting moods of Mirth (L’Allegro) and Melancholy (il Penseroso), eventually advocating a ‘middle way’ of Moderation. Milton’s poetry was suggested to Handel by his friend the philosopher James Harris, who set about rearranging the poems to create a convincing musical structure; Handel himself had the idea of a final section to unite Milton’s poems into ‘one Moral Design’. The libretto was refined by Charles Jennens (better known as the compiler of the text for Messiah).

This poetic allegory yielded some of Handel’s most inventive and colourful music. The text focuses on English rural and urban life that would have been familiar to Handel: milkmaids and shepherds, warbling birds, the cricket on the hearth, the ‘busy hum’ of ‘populous cities’, the thrill of the hunt, tongue-in-cheek references to theatrical performances of Ben Jonson and Shakespeare – all come to life thanks to the composer’s imaginative use of the orchestra and singers. The final ‘Moderato’ section culminates in one of Handel’s most sublime duets, evoking nothing less than the dawn of the Age of Enlightenment.

This riotous variety of moods and images will be celebrated by the Monteverdi Choir and a team of brilliant young solo singers, as well as by the English Baroque Soloists – the piece has notable solos for horn, flute, oboe, bassoon, organ, bells and cello.

Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists – December 2022 – Paul Marc Mitchell

HOW YOU CAN SUPPORT US

In the year we celebrate John Eliot Gardiner’s 80th birthday, help us to realise our landmark tours to international audiences by pledging your support as a partner in our projects. Join an exclusive group of like-minded individuals who share a passion for delivering projects at the highest level.

At a challenging time for the performing arts, the impact of delivering international tours comes with added financial pressures. Your support will help us to bridge the gap between our earned income from concert and recording fees and the cost of touring to prestigious venues and festivals around the world.

In particular, we are seeking support for our landmark documentary showcasing Monteverdi’s music alongside the artwork of his contemporaries in richly evocative venues. Become a partner and share in the brilliance of this project. Partners will be among the few invited to attend public performances or open rehearsals during the project.

We would also encourage you to share these projects with others who may be interested in a partnership.

If you would like to discuss how you could support us, please contact bryony@monteverdi.org.uk or development@monteverdi.org.uk to arrange a discussion with our Fundraising Manager, Bryony Benstead or our General Director, Dr Rosa Solinas.

With grateful thanks to our Principal Funder: Dunard Fund for supporting our 2023 projects and to Monteverdi Castiglioncello del Trinoro, Tuscany for their support of our Monteverdi project.

Monteverdi Choir and Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique – September 2022 – Chris Christodoulou