Splendour of Venice - University of Sydney

PINCHGUT OPERA PRESENTS A CONCERT OF SACRED MUSIC BY MONTEVERDI, GABRIELLI AND ALLEGRI - SPLENDOUR OF VENICE

Sunday, 26 April

Pinchgut will perform for the first time in the Great Hall at The University of Sydney. Pinchgut‘s Orchestra of the Antipodes and the vocal ensemble Cantillation will perform a program of glorious music, originally composed for the acoustic and majestic surrounds of the gold mosaics of St Mark’s Basilica in Venice. This polychoral music from the seventeenth century was the original “surround sound”.

Pinchgut Opera’s Artistic Director and maestro, Erin Helyard, said: “Our audience will be immersed in the transcendent beauty of Allegri's sublime Miserere and the pure harmonies of Monteverdi and Gabrieli. This will be the first time Pinchgut Opera has performed at the University of Sydney.  The distinctive surrounds and acoustics have been especially chosen to suit the music. The program utilises the space of the building, with two groups of singers and players performing across the transept.

This concert encourages the contemplation of the infinite.  I chose the music and the setting in the hope that both  will create a sublime experience that uplifts the spirit.  This is music that I believe needs to be experienced in person, and not in a recording. It is only through live performance that the beauty and presence of the music is most fully on display. Allegri’s Miserere is arguably one of the most beautiful pieces of choral music in the history of music.”

Included in the orchestra will be instruments appropriate to the time of composition: strings, sackbuts, cornett, dulcian, theorbo, and baroque harp.

Orchestra of the Antipodes is Pinchgut Opera’s flagship orchestra and has played in every production since Orfeo in 2004. Cantillation are a highly trained professional choir of exceptional singers and are specialists in choral music of the Renaissance and Baroque. Cantillation’s most recent appearances for Pinchgut productions were Theodora in 2016, Athalia in 2018 and the ensemble will also feature in Médée in June 2020.

PERFORMANCE INFORMATIONSPLENDOUR OF VENICEGREAT HALL, UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY

Sunday 26 April 2020, 1pm and 5pm

This performance will run for approximately 70 minutes with no interval.

PROGRAM

Monteverdi - Vespro della BV, Domine ad adiuvandum Monteverdi - Vespro della BV, Ave maris stella Monteverdi - Messa a 4 voci e Salmi, Laetatus sum Monteverdi - Vespro della BV, Pulchra esCavalli Lauda Jerusalem Gabrieli - Sonata con tre violini C214 Gabrieli - In ecclesiis a 15 Symphoniae sacrae 2 Gabrieli- Sonata pian e forte C175Allegri MiserereGabrieli - Canzon primi toni a 8 C170 Gabrieli - Jubilate deo a 10 Symphoniae sacrae 2

ABOUT PINCHGUT OPERA

Pinchgut Opera rediscovers operatic masterpieces from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Since its inception in 2002, Pinchgut has presented twenty-one rarely performed gems. The creative team is driven by both musical excellence and academic rigour, and fuelled by a desire to unearth these rarely performed operas and to present them for audiences. While other Australian opera companies present the more familiar operas excellently; Pinchgut is about discovering a new operatic experience, attaining this with outstanding critical successes. pinchgutopera.com.au

LIST OF PRODUCTIONS

1. Handel’s Semele (2002)

2. Purcell’s The Fairy Queen (2003)

3. Monteverdi’s Orfeo (2004)

4. Rameau’s Dardanus (2005)

5. Mozart’s Idomeneo (2006)

6. Vivaldi’s Juditha Triumphans (2007)

7. Charpentier’s David et Jonathas (2008)

8. Cavalli’s Ormindo (2009)

9. Haydn’s L’anima del filosofo (2010)

10. Vivaldi’s Griselda (2011)

11. Rameau’s Castor & Pollux (2012)

12. Cavalli’s Giasone (2013)

13. Salieri’s The Chimney Sweep (July 2014)

14. Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride (Dec 2014)

15. Vivaldi’s Bajazet (Jul 2015)

16. Grétry’s L’Amant jaloux (Dec 2015)

17. Haydn's Armida (June 2016)

18. Handel's Theodora (Dec 2016)

19. Rameau’s Anacréon, Pigmalion and Vinci’s Erighetta e Don Chilone (June 2017)

20. Monteverdi’s Coronation of Poppea (Dec 2017)

21. Handel’s Athalia (June 2018)Hasse’s Artaserse (November 2018)

22. Monteverdi’s The Return of Ulysses

23. (June 2019)Vivaldi’s Farnace (December 2019)