2007/2008 Vivaldi's Venice Concert Series
Each spring we continue to celebrate the creative work of Antonio Vivaldi as no other American orchestra has ever done. 2008 launches The Little Orchestra's 17th year of Vivaldi presentations, with each season proving more innovative and thrilling than the last.
Concierto Barroco, Thursday, May 15th at 7:30pm—Kenneth Cooper, Harpsichord Soloist
This concert draws its title from the 1974 novella by Cuban author and musicologist Alejo Carpentier, a leading figure in the magical realism literary movement which emerged in Latin America in the 1960s. Carpentier’s enchanting tale imagines Vivaldi’s 1733 opera about Montezuma as being inspired by a wealthy Mexican nobleman amidst the romance of Carnival in eighteenth-century Venice. In the boundless, timeless Venice of Carpentier’s work, musical events include eighteenth-century superstars Handel and Scarlatti in a fantasy jam session at the Pietà, a surreal picnic at the Venetian island resting place of Igor Stravinsky, and Wagner’s funeral procession, continuing with the Mexican nobleman’s servant attending a concert by Louis Armstrong! Award-winning actor and musician David Gonzalez will narrate this program.
The Two Annas: Vivaldi’s Muses, Tuesday, June 3rd at 7:30pm—Maria Bachmann, Violin Soloist
Vivaldi created a number of his masterpieces for two famous women, both named Anna. There was Anna Maria della Pietà, the brilliant violinist whose virtuosity was universally known throughout eighteenth-century Europe. Then there was Anna Girò, the opera diva who toured Europe with Vivaldi as the star of his operas. This concert features music inspired by these two very important women in Vivaldi’s life—his two Annas.
Performances at ZANKEL HALL at CARNEGIE HALL
Vivaldi's Venice celebrates seventeen spectacular years this season. In 1990, consistent with its mandate to restore long-neglected masterpieces to the contemporary concert repertoire, the Orchestra began an annual festival to showcase the works of Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) in the context of 18-century Venice, and in the dynamic style of the composer. After over 200 Vivaldi works, many of them American premieres, the series has admirably achieved its mission.
Music Director Dino Anagnost, The Little Orchestra Society and distinguished artists have presented over 100 concertos which featured outstanding instrumentalists such as Carter Brey, David Cerutti, Stephanie Chase, Kenneth Cooper, Eugene Drucker, Lawrence Dutton, Dorothy Papadakos, Angel Romero, Henry Schuman and Chee Yun. Arias and overtures from 20 operas, 21 choral works (including Vespers and Dixit), 15 cantatas and motets (sacred and secular), the complete oratorio, Juditha Triumphans, and the American premiere of the serenata La Senna Festeggiante, displayed the brilliant vocal techniques of Jane Dutton, Eugenie Grunewald, Erie Mills, Julie Newell, Rockland Osgood, Ellen Rabiner, Derek Lee Ragin, Melanie Sonnenberg, Julia Anne Wolf, and the accomplished artistry of The Orpheon Chorale and Metropolitan Singers/The Greek Choral Society. American premieres of Arsilda, regina di Ponto, L'Olimpiade and Tamerlano, with the assistance of eminent Vivaldi opera authority Dr. Eric Cross, introduced The Little Orchestra Society audiences to Vivaldi, the opera impresario, narrated by stage and screen stars, Claire Bloom, Dana Ivey and Lynn Redgrave. The series' Tenth Anniversary Season of 2000 offered an innovative and rare marriage of 18th and 21st centuries into a single live performance of Jorge Calandrelli's arrangement of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons featuring jazz clarinetist Eddie Daniels, a jazz trio and the Orchestra. The 2002-2003 season featured a wonderful juxtaposition of Piazzolla's Four Seasons in Buenos Aires and Vivaldi's Four Seasons.
Programs have also included Bach's transcriptions for keyboard of Vivaldi's concertos, as well as rarely performed concertos for unusual instruments like the conch, theorbo, and two salmoes, which were constructed in Austria specifically for Vivaldi's Venice. String symphonies, chamber music, and works by illustrious Vivaldi contemporaries like Gabrieli, Corelli, Marcello, Albinoni, Hasse, Porpora, Telemann, Steffani, Bach, Handel and Scarlatti completed the repertoire. Through its comprehensive presentation of Vivaldi's work, its attention to style and historical framework, The Little Orchestra Society has become the foremost Vivaldi orchestra in America
