Antonio Vivaldi: Concerto in G minor, RV 578 (from L’Estro Armonico) / Sinfonia from L’Olimpiade / Agitata infido flatu (from Juditha Triumphans) / Lascia almen (from La Costanza Trionfante) / Io sento in questo seno (from Arsilda regina di Ponte) / Gemo in un punto e fremo (from L’Olimpiade) / Sento in seno (from Tieteberga) / Sovvente il sole (from Andromeda Liberata)

This first concert by the French contralto, Nathalie Stutzmann, our principal guest artist this year, brings us a programme based on vocal works from the first half of the eighteenth century. Stutzmann is unquestionably one of the leading contraltos of our times. She will direct the period ensemble, Orfeo 55, and the Prima Donna programme consists of a selection of arias from the operas of Antonio Vivaldi, a great defender of the natural character of the female voice as against the androgynous timbre of the castrati that were so popular at the time.

With Prima Donna we will be able to appreciate the novelty of bringing together in one concert some of the best arias composed for the female voice, and which are to be found in Vivaldi’s operas and oratorios. Stutzmann will intersperse these works with orchestral pieces by the same composer, probably the most famous Venetian musician of all time.

This concert will be a deserved tribute to Antonia Margherita Merighi, Anna Girò, Lucia Lancetti and others, for whom Vivaldi composed these works.