Sergiu Nastasa, Konzertmeister
Carmen-Otilia Alitsei, Violin
Georgios Samoilis, Violin
Ioannis Agraniotis, Violin
Zoe Pouri, Violin
Laurentiu Octavian Matasaru, Viola
Luise-Charlotte Ramos-Stahl, Viola
Iason Ioannou, Cello
Christopher Jarrett Humphrys, Cello
Angelos Repapis, Double bass
Opera singer Max Emanuel Cenčić is praised as one of the most fascinating and versatile opera singers in the world today, and in the big anniversary season of the Festival, this winner of the Orlando Award for the best artistic achievement in the music programme at the 61st Festival will return to the Rector's Palace, where he will perform the best of baroque music with the Latinitas Nostra ensemble, founded by the renowned conductor Markellos Chryssicos, one of the foremost Greek experts in early music.
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Antonio Vivaldi:
Sonata in D Minor, Op. 1 No. 12, RV 63 “La Follia”
Georg Friedrich Händel:
“Bramo te sola” aria from Floridante
Nicola Antonio Porpora:
“Nume che reggi il mare” aria from Arianna in Nasso
Antonio Vivaldi:
Sinfonia, RV 149 “Il coro delle muse”
Allegro Molto
Andante
Allegro
Georg Friedrich Händel:
“L’armelin vita non cura” aria from Flavio
Antonio Vivaldi:
“Sorge l’irato nembo” aria from Orlando furioso
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Nicola Antonio Porpora:
“Quanto s’oscura il Cielo” aria from Carlo il Calvo
“Tu spietato lo farai Aria” from Iphigenia in Aulide
Antonio Vivaldi:
Concerto for two violins in A minor, Op.3 No.8, RV 522
Allegro
Larghetto e spiritoso
Allegro
Georg Friedrich Händel:
“Bel contento” aria from Flavio
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Handel – Porpora – Vivaldi
The 1733/34 season was turbulent for the London opera scene: the Royal Academy, an opera company led by George Frideric Handel, founded in 1719, got a rival, the Opera of the Nobility. As in the case of the first company, which was dissolved in 1729, after which Handel founded a new one, the Second Academy, its founders were members of the English nobility. The Royal Academy had nothing to do with the educational institution of the same name, which was founded later. The nobles invited the Italian composer Nicola Porpora, who was considered more modern than Handel, to be the music director of the new 'house'; the company was joined by singers who had previously collaborated with Handel, such as Senesino and Cuzzoni, and in the second season by Farinelli, a celebrated singer and Porpora’s student.
Everything was set for long-term rivalry and fierce musical battle, which 'everyone was talking about'. Both opera houses eventually went bankrupt, but the audiences profited, at least temporarily, as Handel and Porpora tried to outdo each other, and themselves, for four years, always with new works.
The rivalry between Handel and Porpora was described in a satirical pamphlet Do You Know What You are About? Or, a Protestant Alarm to Great Britain, in which, among other things, it is stated that Handel and Senesino 'are playing at Dog and Bear, exactly like the Two Kings of Poland, contending for the Empire of Doremifa'.
Somewhat less dramatic links are found between Porpora and Antonio Vivaldi, or Vivaldi and Handel. Porpora and Vivaldi both worked at the Ospedale della Pietà orphanage in Venice, where they taught music and wrote important works for young female musicians. Porpora worked in two other orphanages for girls in Venice, Ospedale dei Poveri Derelitti and Ospedale degli Incurabili. Although today his works for young female musicians are considered less exciting than Vivaldi's, his influence was strong and his pieces popular (he also had great operatic success) and it is considered that Vivaldi adopted features of his style in some of his works.
From 1706 Handel travelled around Italy and met a number of Italian composers who influenced his work, including Alessandro and Domenico Scarlatti, Arcangelo Corelli and, perhaps, Antonio Vivaldi. Handel successfully staged his opera Agrippina in Venice in 1709, and was, like Vivaldi, interested in meeting his colleagues. It is also considered more likely that Handel knew Vivaldi's music than the other way around, and that Vivaldi's style influenced Handel's orchestral works.
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Known as ‘the Red Priest’, the red-haired composer and priest Antonio Vivaldi (Venice, 1678 – Vienna, 1741) was taught violin by his father, and later taught violin, conducting and composition. Soon after he was ordained a priest, he stopped holding Masses, claiming it was due to his poor health. He rose to fame with his early trio sonatas and the cycle L'estro armonico, from which this evening we will hear Concerto for Two Violins, RV 522.
Impressed by his music, Bach transcribed some of his concertos for keyboard. Vivaldi held various musical posts in Venetian churches, he served as Prince Philipp of Hesse-Darmstadt’s maestro di cappella da camera and spent three carnival seasons in Rome, where he composed operas. His Concertos Op. 8 increased his reputation as a composer. Shortly before he died, he travelled to Vienna to try his luck as a composer, but it turned out to be too late.
Vivaldi’s influence is most evident in instrumental music, especially concertos, in which he used the ritornello form in fast movements and the three-movement form of composition. A skilled orchestrator, he cleverly used the techniques that were new at the time, such as muting and pizzicato, also expanding the playing technique. Vivaldi wrote around five hundred concertos and most likely (according to his writings) around a hundred operas, twenty of which survived to this day.
The Trio Sonata in D minor is based on one of the oldest recorded European musical themes – La follia, originally from Spain or Portugal. Lully was the first composer to publish his version of Follia, after which other composers, such as Corelli and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, used the same progression.
Vivaldi wrote the Sinfonia in G major for a concert at the Ospedale della Pietà, in honor of Frederick Christian, Prince-Elector of Saxony, who was also presented with the sheet music of Vivaldi's works. The piece is called the ‘Choir of the Muses’ because a cantata with that title by the forgotten composer Gennaro D'Alessandro was performed after the Sinfonia.
Vivaldi composed the opera Orlando furioso in 1727 to a libretto by Grazio Braccioli, based on Ludovico Ariosto’s epic poem of the same name. In the opera, the chivalrous hero Orlando is furious and in love and mad, and the plot takes place on the island of the evil enchantress Alcina.
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Georg Frideric Handel (Halle, 1685 – London, 1759) was considered the most important composer of his time, as well as the most important English composer. He developed an interest in opera while serving as a violinist and harpsichordist in opera productions in Hamburg, and in Italy he met Corelli and the Scarlattis. He brought his interest in Italian music with him to England, where he permanently settled after having served at the Hanoverian court. In London he successfully staged operas and oratorios in which he displayed even broader creative range and sense of drama. Handel wrote 45 operas, including pasticci of works by various authors, 31 oratorios and numerous other vocal pieces. He was a master of melody, but also a versatile and important composer of instrumental music – concertos, suites, overtures and sonatas. He blended the elements of different European styles of the period – the harmony and counterpoint of Protestant sacred music of his youth, the Italian melodic inventiveness, brightness and vivacity and the French model of overtures and dances.
Porpora was not Handel’s only rival, there was also Giovanni Bononcini, one of the composers who also wrote operas for the Royal Academy. Bononcini's operas were initially more successful than Handel's; at the height of their competition, in 1721, Handel wrote the opera Floridante, to a libretto by Paolo Antonio Rolli, about court and love intrigues in ancient Persia.
The opera Flavio, written to a libretto by Nicola Francesco Haym, was first performed in London in 1723 and it was Handel's fourth opera for the Academy. Musicologist Winton Dean described the opera about Flavio, King of Lombardy, as ‘an anti-heroic comedy with tragic undertones’. Handel wrote it specifically for the castrato Senesino, who later joined the rival, Porpora's camp.
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Composer Nicola (Antonio) Porpora (Naples, 1686 – 1768) was also a highly esteemed teacher of singing. He studied music at the Naples Conservatory, where he wrote his first operas, after which he served as Kapellmeister of the Prince of Hesse-Darmstadt. He wrote operas for the Viennese court, and also composed for Rome and London. He taught singing and composition at the Onofrio Conservatory in Naples, where he rose to fame, and the celebrated castrato Farinelli was one of his students. He occasionally lived and worked in Venice and served as a teacher of singing and Kapellmeister in Dresden, where he came into conflict with the Oberkapellmeister, composer Hasse. As a teacher of singing in Vienna, he taught music to young Haydn, who worked for him as an assistant and accompanist.
He wrote over 40 operas, cantatas, oratorios and masses. He developed a trend of decorating vocal lines, since he understood voice and its possibilities as a renowned vocal teacher. He paid less attention to thematic diversity and dramatic effects.
Arianna in Nasso was Porpora’s first opera written for the Opera of the Nobility, in 1733, to a libretto by the conductor Paolo Rolli, based on the myth of the love story of Ariadne and Theseus, who is married to Antiope. Porpora chose this theme to challenge Handel, who wrote Arianna in Creta the same year, to a libretto by Pietro Pariati.
Carlo il Calvo was staged by Porpora in Rome in 1738 and based on a Venetian libretto that had been set to music by several composers before him. In the story of Charlemagne's heirs, his grandson Lothar kidnaps his half-brother to take the throne for himself.
Porpora wrote Ifigenia in Aulide for the Opera of the Nobility in 1735, for Farinelli and Senesino, with correspondingly demanding vocal parts. Paolo Rolli's libretto was based on the often-used story of Iphigenia, whom her father Agamemnon, after offending the goddess Artemis, decides to sacrifice to be able to continue his journey to the Trojan War.
In September 2024, Max Emanuel Cenčić will stage Ifigenia in Aulide at the Baroque Opera Festival in Bayreuth.
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Max Emanuel Cenčić is one of the world's most fascinating and versatile singing artists committed to the rediscovery and performance of 18th century music. He began his vocal training as a Viennese choirboy and began a solo career as a soprano as early as 1992, which he continued as a countertenor from 2001. With his virtuoso mezzo-soprano Max Emanuel Cenčić shows how technically brilliant and at the same time modern and sensitive baroque singing can be. He has been on stage for more than 40 years, appearing worldwide at major opera houses such as the Vienna State Opera, the Musiktheater an der Wien, the Zurich Opera House, the Opéra Royal in Versailles, the Bavarian State Opera, the Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin, Barcelona's Gran Teatro del Liceu, the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, the Paris Opera and the Brussels opera house La Monnaie. Cenčić celebrated his 40th stage anniversary on 10 September 2022 on the stage of the Margravial Opera House in Bayreuth, where he sang a gala dedicated to the castrato Senesino as part of the Bayreuth Baroque Festival, which he founded.
Concerts have taken him to the Laeiszhalle Hamburg, Carnegie Hall (New York), the Barbican Center (London), Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, the Vienna Musikverein, Konzerthaus and the Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow. He has also performed at numerous festivals worldwide, including the Salzburg Festival. He works regularly with conductors such as William Christie, René Jacobs, Ottavio Dantone, George Petrou, Emmanuelle Haïm and Riccardo Muti.
Cenčić attracts great attention to his projects by bringing them to audiences in opera productions, CD recordings as well as extensive tours. In addition, broadcasters such as Mezzo TV and Arte Concert have documented many of his outstanding performances, such as the Handel operas Alessandro and Arminio. As artistic director of Parnassus Arts Productions, he is responsible for conceiving, directing and performing important works of the Italian Baroque, including the sensational rediscovery of Leonardo Vinci's last opera Artaserse. The work not only thrilled on stage, but in its recording was awarded all relevant recording prizes, including the ECHO Klassik 2013 and 2014, the German Record Critics' Award and the Diapason d'or, as well as being nominated for a Grammy. Vinci's opera Catone in Utica was also a resounding success. The CD production Ottone with Cenčić in the title role was nominated for a Grammy.
His solo recordings are equally convincing: On Venezia he fascinated audiences and press alike with highlights of Venetian opera. The CD Rokoko brings together virtuoso arias from Johann Adolph Hasse's extensive oeuvre. His CD Arie Napoletane was also highly praised by the press. Cenčić’s extensive discography, which features several world premiere recordings, has received numerous awards, including the Diapason d'Or, the German Record Critics' Prize and the Croatian Porin Prize. Several of his releases became ‘Editor's Choice’ of the British Gramophone magazine. Another highlight is the European tour of his solo programme Porpora (on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of Nicola Antonio Porpora's death) with solo concerts in Paris, Halle, Toulouse, and many more, as well as his Diapason D'or award-winning solo CD of the same name.
For his artistic work, he was awarded the Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture and in 2021 received the Honorary Prize of the German Record Critics' Association in the category ‘Classical Music’ for his life's work.
Max Emanuel Cenčić has long since made a name for himself internationally as a director, for example with the live production of Hasse's Siroe, which toured Europe and was released on CD by Decca. At the Handel Festival Karlsruhe in 2016 and 2017 with Arminio and in 2019 and 2020 with Xerxes
he appeared in double roles: He sang the title role of Arminio and the role of Arsamene respectively, and took over the direction of the rarely performed works. Rave reviews were received by his production of Porpora's rarely performed opera Polifemo at the 2019 Salzburger Pfingstfestspiele, where the artist signed for the direction and sang the role of Ulisse. Cenčić also presented his interpretation of Rossini's La Donna del Lago in Lausanne, Zagreb and Wiesbaden.
Max Emanuel Cenčić has been artistic director of the Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival since September 2020. The first editions of the new, spectacular festival, which took place despite the Corona crisis, were a huge success with audiences and the press; 1,000,000 visitors worldwide followed the broadcasts online each year, and all Bayreuth performances were sold out. Cenčić was responsible for directing the new productions Carlo il Calvo, where he sang the role of Lottario, and Alessandro nell'Indie. Both productions were named Opera New Production of the Year 2020 and 2022 respectively in the Opera Trophies of the French professional journal Forum Opera. At the 2023 Festival, guests included Rolando Villazon, Julia Lezhneva and Daniel Behle.
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On Markellos Chryssikos’ initiative, the ensemble Latinitas Nostra was founded to provide a platform for young Greek early music musicians. The ensemble has worked with Lykourgos Angelopoulos’s Choir, among others, and performed music from the period of Venetian rule in Crete. Other performances include the first revival of Antonio Caldara’s opera Olimpiade (Megaron Musikis Athens, 2009), the first staged performance of Benedetto Marcello’s cantata Cassandra (Days of Music Rhodes, 2010), and L’incoronazione di Poppea by Claudio Monteverdi (Athens Festival, 2011). Latinitas Nostra’s discography includes the albums Lamento with mezzo-soprano Romina Basso and I Dilettanti with countertenor Xavier Sabata.
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Markellos Chryssicos studied the harpsichord with Margarita Dalmati in Athens. He continued his studies in Historical Performance in Paris with S. Romeo and O. Baumont, in Salzburg with K. Gilbert and S. Rampe and in Geneva with the late Christiane Jaccottet of whom he was the last student.
Having acquired a vast and solid repertoire ranging from early madrigals to Rossini operas, he founded the Latinitas Nostra ensemble making odd musical pairings the trademark of the group, such as Elisabethan and Ottoman music (Athens Festival 2013) or French Leçons des Ténèbres and Rebetiko music (Onassis Cultural Center 2015).
As an assistant conductor to G. Petrou and a vocal coach he participated in various staged productions as well as award winning recordings for MDG, Decca, Sony. He conducted the Venice Baroque Orchestra in a double CD recording L'Olimpiade, which was awarded the CHOC de Classica. As a conductor he often collaborates with Armonia Atenea, with the State Symphony Orchestra of Athens, the State Symphony Orchestra of Thessaloniki as well as with other ensembles like the Irish Baroque Orchestra (Handel's Ariodante in Dublin).
His recent engagements include Menotti’s opera Amahl and the Night Visitors with Armonia Atenea, Rossini’s Stabat Mater with the Greek National Choir and the premiere of the new opera Visions and Wonders by Dimitris Maragopoulos.
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Max Emanuel Cenčić (c) Łukasz Rajchert
