CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Cappella Mediterranea
Angeli e Demoni
Part of Mix and Mingle.
Performers
Cappella Mediterranea
Leonardo García Alarcón, Artistic Director
Olivier Lexa, Stage Direction
Program
MONTEVERDI Ritornello,"Dal mio permesso amato" from Prologue to L'Orfeo
MONTEVERDI "Speranza, tu mi vai" from L'incoronazione di Poppea
MONTEVERDI "Sí dolce è'l tormento" from Quarto scherzo delle ariose vaghezze
MONTEVERDI "Chi parla?" from L'incoronazione di Poppea
MONTEVERDI "Compagni, udiste?" from Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria
MONTEVERDI "Ardo e scoprir, ahí lasso" from Madrigals, Book VIII
MONTEVERDI "Son risoluto insomma" from L'incoronazione di Poppea
MONTEVERDI "Hor che Seneca è morto" from L'incoronazione di Poppea
MONTEVERDI "O ciechi chiechi" from Selva morale e spirituale
MONTEVERDI "Pastor d'armenti puo" from Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria
MONTEVERDI "Imparate mortali" from Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria
MONTEVERDI "Sí ch’io vorrei morire" from Madrigals, Book IV
MONTEVERDI "Orfeo son io" from L'Orfeo
MONTEVERDI "Voglio di vita uscir"
MONTEVERDI "Altri canti d'amore" from Madrigals, Book VIII
Encore:
FRESCOBALDI "Se l'aura spira" from Primo libro d'arie musicali per cantarsi
Event Duration
The printed program will last approximately 80 minutes with no intermission.Pre-Concert Talk
Pre-concert talk starts at 6:30 PM in Zankel Hall with Olivier Lexa, Founder and Artistic Director of the Venetian Center for Baroque Music, in conversation with Jeremy Geffen, Director of Artistic Planning, Carnegie Hall.Watch
La Serenissima: Music and Arts from the Venetian Republic is sponsored by Chubb.
The Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism has granted La Serenissima: Music and Arts from the Venetian Republic its official support (“Patrocinio”) in recognition of Carnegie Hall’s celebration of Italy’s extraordinarily rich cultural legacy.
Carnegie Hall gratefully acknowledges the support of the Ministry of Heritage and Culture and Tourism in Rome; the Embassy of Italy in Washington, DC; and the Consulate General of Italy in New York.
At a Glance
To mark the 450th anniversary of his birth, Cappella Mediterranea wishes to pay homage to Monteverdi in a program of compositions on the theme of sin and virtue, a constant throughout his operas, his madrigals, and the renowned Venetian collection of devotional music Selva morale e spirituale. In L’incoronazione di Poppea—perhaps the greatest depiction of corrupt immorality in the history of opera—he represented vice and its associated emotions; but he also offered a virtuous counterpart, a remedy to vice, in the madrigals of the Selva morale. This was the perspective in which Leonardo García Alarcón devised the project, taking inspiration from the way that the subplots of an opera often shed light on its main plot even though they are disconnected from the action or characters’ development. Freed from an opera’s demand for narrative continuity, each tableau heard tonight is viewed in light of the preceding one, while also setting up expectations for the next. Rather than an allegory, this program offers a theatrical and madrigalian catharsis—in the Greek sense of “emotional purification.”
Bios
Cappella Mediterranea
The ensemble Cappella Mediterranea was founded in 2005 by Argentinian conductor Leonardo
García Alarcón. As its name indicates, the ensemble originally arose from a passion for the
music of the Mediterranean basin, and also aimed to propose a different approach to Baroque
music of the Latin tradition.
Twelve years later, the repertory of Cappella Mediterranea has grown more diversified.
With more than 45 concerts each year, the ensemble explores madrigals, polyphonic motets,
and operas--a mixture of genres that has molded a unique performing style characterized by
an exceptionally close rapport between the conductor and the musicians. Cappella
Mediterranea's enthusiastic encounters with previously forgotten works, its original
reinterpretations of the repertory, its concerts that combine theater and dance, and its
recordings have attracted great public and critical attention.
Cappella Mediterranea has been invited to give concerts in numerous festivals and at
prestigious venues, including the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, Royal Opera of Versailles,
Vienna Konzerthaus, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires.
In the field of opera, Cappella Mediterranea enjoyed its first success in 2013 with a
performance of Cavalli's Elena at the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence. Since then,
it has received many invitations to perform at leading opera houses. In September 2016, the
group gave the first performance of a work by Cavalli at the Opéra National de Paris with
Eliogabalo.
Cappella Mediterranea has made some 15 recordings, released on the Ambronay Éditions,
Naïve, and Ricercar labels. Its recording of works by Barbara
Strozzi, Virtuosissima compositrice, was nominated for a MIDEM Classical
Award, while Sogno Barocco with Anne Sofie von Otter received a Grammy
nomination in 2013. Monteverdi: I 7 Peccati Capitali has been nominated for a 2017
Victoire de la Musique.
Leonardo García Alarcón
After studying the piano in Argentina, Leonardo García Alarcón moved to Europe in 1997 for
advanced studies at the Conservatoire de Musique de Genève in the harpsichord class of
Christiane Jaccottet. He was a member of Ensemble Elyma, and became Gabriel Garrido's
assistant before founding his own ensemble, Cappella Mediterranea, in 2005. From 2010 to
2013, he was in residence at the Centre Culturel de Rencontre d'Ambronay, where he is now
an associate artist.
In 2010, he was appointed artistic director and principal conductor of the Choeur de
Chambre de Namur. In 2015, he founded the Millenium Orchestra. He is also a professor of
harpsichord conducting and Baroque vocal interpretation at the Conservatoire de Musique de
Genève.
His discography--with Cappella Mediterranea, the Namur Chamber Choir, and Millenium
Orchestra--has received widespread critical acclaim.
As a conductor and harpsichordist, he is invited to perform at festivals and concert halls
the world over, including the opera houses of Montpellier, Lyon, Nantes, Rennes, and Lille;
Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires; Concertgebouw in Amsterdam; Opéra de Monte-Carlo; Théâtre des
Champs-Élysées in Paris; Wigmore Hall in London; and Teatro Massimo in Palermo. He has
conducted the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon, Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, and Freiburger
Barockorchester, among others.
Since its first modern performance under his direction in 2011, Falvetti's Il diluvio
universale has been heard all over Europe, with concerts scheduled in 2016 and 2017 at
the Vienna Konzerthaus and venues in Versailles and Geneva.
Following the success of Cavalli's Elena at the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence in
2013, Leonardo García Alarcón also has been invited to appear at international opera
houses, including the Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid, Opéra national de Paris, and Dutch
National Opera and Ballet in Amsterdam.
In 2017, he will conduct three of Cavalli's operas: Giasone in Geneva,
Erismena in Aix-en-Provence, and Eliogabalo in Amsterdam. He also will
lead Monteverdi's Orfeo in Europe this spring, before taking it on tour to South
America next fall.
Olivier Lexa
Author and stage director, Olivier Lexa is trained as a historian and musician. He started
his stage-directing career in 1999 as assistant director of Koltès's Sallinger at the
contemporary arts theater 3 bis f in Aix-en-Provence. He went on to assist Benjamin Lazar
at the Théâtre de l'Incrédule and co-direct the Festival Opéra des Rues in Paris, before
being appointed chief executive of the Palazzetto Bru Zane in 2007. After three years
devoted to the repertoire of French Romantic music, he founded the Venetian Centre for
Baroque Music in 2010, of which he is artistic director. In 2014, he staged the first
recreation of Cavalli's Eritrea in a production by Teatro La Fenice. In 2016, he
was the dramaturge for new productions of Verdi's I due Foscari (with Plácido
Domingo singing the title role) and Madama Butterfly (conducted by Riccardo
Chailly) at Teatro alla Scala, as well as Gassmann's L'opera seria (conducted by
René Jacobs) at La Monnaie. In 2016, he staged the first modern revival of Cavalli's
Oristeo, led by Jean-Marc Aymes in Marseille.