Carlo Vistoli

Carlo Vistoli - Opera Antica (Concert)

Leonardo García Alarcón | Cappella Mediterranea

Margravial Opera House Bayreuth

Whether Paris, or London, Moscow, Venice, Berlin, Salzburg or Vienna – the Italian countertenor Carlo Vistoli guests regularly at the major opera houses of the world and has made an outstanding name for himself especially in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century repertoire. In his cleverly compiled concert programmes, he focuses time and again also on unknown works, his virtuosic coloratura and tonal beauty breathing new life into long forgotten operatic heroes from the cradle of operatic history.

In the concert Opera Antica Carlo Vistoli and the Cappella Mediterranea under Leonardo Garcia Alarcón take us to Italy of the mid-seventeenth century, where the still young genre of the opera was scaling its first summits of achievement. Composers like Monteverdi, Cesti, Cavalli and Stradella had hardly any existing traditions to latch onto and had to reinvent this innovative configuration of theatre, song, dance and music almost from scratch. The works yielded by this were to shape the history of music theatre permanently: in the cheerful “Ombra mai fu” from Cavalli’s Xerse or the yearning love lament “E pur io torno” from Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea, everything is germinated here that subsequent periods would reap as profound musical emotions. And when have we ever heard in later times such a dramatic, poignant and yet comedic madness scene as in Stradella’s comic opera Il Trespolo tutore?

Program and cast

Carlo Vistoli - Countertenor
Leonardo García Alarcón - Conductor and Harpsichord
Cappella Mediterranea Orchestra in Residence of the Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival 2025

PROGRAMME

Francesco Cavalli (1602–1676)
“Ohimè, che miro – Misero Apollo”
Lamento of Apollo from Gli amori di Apollo e Dafne

“Ombra mai fu”
Aria of Xerse from Il Xerse

“Uscitemi dal cor, lacrime amare”
Lamento of Idraspe from Erismena

“Per eccesso d’affetto – Che ti diss’io?“”
Aria of Iarba from La Didone

“Erme e solinghe cime – Lucidissima face”
Aria of Endimione from La Calisto

Antonio Cesti (1623–1669)
“Qual profondo letargo – Care note amorose – Fissa il chiodo, o Fortuna”
Aria of Alidoro from L’Orontea

Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643)
“E pur io torno”
Aria of Ottone) from L’incoronazione di Poppea

“I miei subiti sdegni”
Aria of Ottone) from L’incoronazione di Poppea

Alessandro Stradella (1643–1682)
From Il trespolo tutore
“Oh, quanti soli – Oblio, che lento e tacito – Su, dunque, fuggite”
Aria of Nino from Il Trespolo tutore

“Tarapà, tarapà, tarapà – Fa’ la nanna, Nino mio – Venghino in questo circolo”
Nino’s Mad Scene  from Il Trespolo tutore