For technical and financial reasons, the originally announced opera Nettuno e Flora festeggianti by Antonio Cesti will not be performed but will be replaced by the equally forgotten work by his younger contemporary Antonio Gianettini L’Echo Ravvivata. Organizes of the Festival of Baroque Arts apologize for the change of program and trust that you will find this opera equally enjoyable, and look forward to presenting Cesti’s opera in a coming year of our Festival.
Antonio Gianettini: L’Echo Ravvivata
Premiere: Innsbruck, 21 May 1681
New premiere: Český Krumlov, Castle Theatre, 15 – 17 September 2023
Performers: Eva Benett, Kamila Zbořilová, Lucie Rozsnyó, Eliška Minářová, Tomáš Kočan, Tomáš Lajtkep; Baroque ensemble Hof-Musici; Baroque dance ensemble Epochal, choreography by Veronika Rehbergerová; stage director and Baroque gestures Zuzana Vrbová, directed from the harpsichord by Ondřej Macek.
Antonio Gianettini (c. 1648-1721) is an unjustly forgotten composer of the first half of the 17th and early 18th centuries. He was, however, a highly respected master in his time. Originally from Fano in the central Italian region of the Marche, he received his musical training in Venice. From 1674 he was a bass singer in the band of the Basilica of S. Marco, where he later took up the post of organist. At the same time, he held the position of organist in another important Venetian church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo. In addition to his work in church services, he also distinguished himself as an opera composer, writing around a dozen operas for various Venetian theatres. From 1686 until his death, he was musical director for the d’Este family in Modena. His oratorios and operas were performed in the various musical centers of Italy as well as north of the Alps – in Vienna, Innsbruck, Brunswick, Hamburg and Munich, where he later died.
Gianettini wrote the pastoral opera L’Echo Ravvivata (Echo Revived) in Venice in 1681, commissioned by the court of the Duke of Lorraine. It was performed in Innsbruck in May of that year to celebrate the birthday of Eleonore Maria Josefa Habsburg, Archduchess of Austria, Princess of Bohemia and Hungary, Queen of Poland, and Duchess of Lorraine.
The basis for the staging is a manuscript score uniquely preserved in the Austrian National Library in Vienna and a printed libretto in the Vienna City Library. After Gianettini’s festive opera L’Ingresso alla Gioventù di Claudio Nerone, which Hof-Musici performed in 2018, L’Echo Ravvivata is another work with which the ensemble seeks to contribute to the knowledge not only of this unjustly neglected composer, but also of the musical life of the former Habsburg monarchy in the second half of the 17th century.
Tickets available at the Český Krumlov Information Centre.
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About the originally announced opera:
Antonio Cesti: Nettuno e Flora festeggianti
Premiere: Vienna, 12 July 1666
Modern premiere: Český Krumlov, Baroque Castle Theatre, 15-17 September 2023
Antonio Cesti (1623–1669), together with Francesco Cavalli (1602–1676), is one of the most important Italian opera composers of the 17th century. His operas were performed in the most important Italian musical centers, especially in Venice, Naples, and Florence. However, Cesti also made his mark on the history of music in Central Europe. From 1652 to 1657 he was Kapellmeister to Archduke Ferdinand Karl in Innsbruck, and from 1665 to 1667 he held the prestigious post of Kapellmeister to Emperor Leopold I in Vienna. Here he composed his most famous opera, Il Pomo d’Oro. Its performance on the occasion of the Emperor’s marriage is one of the most famous and elaborate operatic performances of the 17th century.