During the Carnival of Venice in 1637, a play ‘rappresentata in musica’ was opened to the public for the first time – a success. Opera was born and spread like wildfire. Venice had the largest number of theatres in the world. In 1677, the Teatro Sant’Angelo opened its doors on the campo of the same name. Tiny, chaotic, cheap and extremely productive, it was renowned for its musicians and its sets. This effervescence owes much to the figure of Vivaldi who, from 1705 onwards, regularly premiered his operas there and acted (with his father) as impresario.

Vivaldi and the violin concerto? Vivaldi is the violin concerto! One must get past the cliché (‘Vivaldi composed the same concerto 500 times’) to understand the extent to which composer, instrument and genre form an indissoluble whole; and that is what Théotime Langlois de Swarte and the musicians of Le Consort have set out to do. From his early youth in Venice to his last days in Vienna, the ‘red-haired priest’ pushed back technical and academic boundaries, constantly creating new narrative forms: the journey of a lifetime.

Mezzo-soprano Eva Zaïcik, who has signed up with Alpha for several recordings, is one of the most prominent vocal artists of her generation. She was chosen as ‘Révélation lyrique’ at the Victoires de la Musique Classique 2018, and elected the same year a Laureate of the prestigious Queen Elizabeth of Belgium Competition. She has participated in the “Jardin des Voix” of les Arts Florissants under William Christie, also regularly collaborates with Le Poème Harmonique and Vincent Dumestre – but her constant accompanist is the harpsichordist Justin Taylor.

In the second half of the seventeenth century, London experienced an artistic golden age, with the arrival of many foreign musicians and the proliferation of theatres and concert halls where audiences came to listen to the stars of the moment. One of these musicians was the Italian Nicola Matteis, who arrived around 1660 and became the sensation of the London music scene. Purcell was only a child at the time and there is no record of their meeting, but it is very likely that he was familiar with Matteis’s works, including his Ayres , recorded here for the first time in a version for four-part consort. Exploration of this London effervescence yields to some surprising discoveries, such as the music of a mysterious composer who published trio sonatas around 1715 under the name Mrs Philarmonica. Le Consort presents the very first recording of this highly interesting music, probably influenced by Corelli and very likely written by a woman composer who, given the conventions of the time, made use of a pseudonym. Her true identity is unfortunately unknown to us.

During the Carnival of Venice in 1637, a play ‘rappresentata in musica’ was opened to the public for the first time – a success. Opera was born and spread like wildfire. Venice had the largest number of theatres in the world. In 1677, the Teatro Sant’Angelo opened its doors on the campo of the same name. Tiny, chaotic, cheap and extremely productive, it was renowned for its musicians and its sets. This effervescence owes much to the figure of Vivaldi who, from 1705 onwards, regularly premiered his operas there and acted (with his father) as impresario. His own Arsilda , L’incoronazione di Dario and La verità in cimento triumphed there, but he also invited composers such as the young Fortunato Chelleri and Giovanni Alberto Ristori. The mezzo-soprano Adèle Charvet and her partners in Le Consort pay tribute to all these composers with a flamboyant programme that mixes famous arias and world premieres – no fewer than twelve of them!

Specchio veneziano or the Venetian mirror – this programme compares and contrasts two composers from the city of the Doges: on the one hand the celebrated Vivaldi, on the other a virtual unknown, Giovanni Battista Reali, who was born there in 1681, three years after Vivaldi, and died in 1751, ten years after his illustrious colleague. A violinist himself, he composed trio sonatas, including a very spectacular Folia, which Théotime Langlois de Swarte, Sophie de Bardonnèche, Hanna Salzenstein and Justin Taylor juxtapose with Vivaldi’s Folia, alongside other highly virtuosic pieces, many of them complete rediscoveries, since half of this program has never been recorded before.