Europa Galante, Fabio Biondi, direction & violinFounded in 1989, by its artistic director Fabio Biondi, Europa Galante quickly acquired international fame, becoming a symbol of the rebirth of baroque music in Italy. From their very first recording, Europa Galante conquered audiences world-wide with its revolutionary approach and their free and impassioned playing of Italian music. Their recordings have won some of the most prestigious awards: Gramophone Award, Grammy Nominations, Echo Classics, Grand Prix du Disque de l'Académie Charles Cros, Vivaldi Prize - Fondazione Giorgio Cini, 4 Diapason d'Or de l'Année, Prix RTL, ffff Télérama, 10 de Répertoire...
The ensemble performs in the world's major concert halls: the Berlin Philharmonic, The Library of Congress in Washington, Lincoln Center in New York, the Théâtre de la Ville and Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris, the Wigmore Hall and Royal Albert Hall in London, Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Musikverein in Vienna, Sydney Opera House, and the international festivals of San Sebastian, Costa Verde, Monaco Printemps des Arts, Baalbeck, London Proms, St Denis, Ambronay, the 'Folle Journée' in Nantes and Tokyo, Festival de La Chaise Dieu and on several occasions in the Festival de Radio France Montpellier. They have toured Canada, Japan, Australia, North and South America, appear regularly throughout Europe and have been invited to the Kraków Misteria Paschalia and Opera Rara festivals every year since 2006.
Europa Galante performs programmes of instrumental and vocal works from the 17th and 18th Centuries, ranging from chamber concerts to oratorio programmes and the operas of Handel and Vivaldi, with such major artists as Ian Bostridge, David Daniels, Patricia Petibon, Nathalie Dessay, Vivica Genaux and Roberta Invernizzi. The ensemble has extensively explored the works of Alessandro Scarlatti, both his Oratorios - La Maddelena, La Santissima Trinità, La Santissima Annunziata, Humanità e Lucifero, Caino..., his Serenades - Clori, Dorino e Amore, and his operas - Massimo Puppieno, Il Trionfo dell'Onore, La Principessa Fedele, Carlo Re d'Allemagna. Europa Galante is also resident ensemble at Rome's Santa Cecilia where they have given several modern world première performances of 18th Century oratorios such as Leonardo Leo's Sant'Elena al Calvario, Antonio Caldara's La Passione di Gesú Cristo, and Francesco di Mayo's Gesú sotto il peso della Croce.
In 1998, after a long collaboration with the label Opus 111, Europa Galante signed an exclusive recording contract with Virgin Classics. Their recordings - Vivaldi's L'Estro Armonico, Airs & Cantatas by J. S. Bach with the English tenor, Ian Bostridge,Vivaldi's Concerti con Titoli and Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione, based on original manuscripts, as well as Boccherini's String Quintets, have all been widely acclaimed in the international press. Their most recent Virgin Classics release, a Vivaldi aria recording with Vivica Genaux in 2011, was awarded the German Echo Classics Prize. The same year the ensemble was nominated for a Grammy Award for their recording of Vivaldi's opera Ercole sul Termodonte, and this following Grammy nominations for Vivaldi's Bajazet in 2006 and Concerti con molti strumenti in 2004. They have recently recorded Vivaldi's opera L'Oracolo in Messenia, also for Virgin Classics.
Europa Galante has recently embarked on a new recording partnership with the French label Agogique. Their first albim, Suite and concertos by G. P. Telemann, will be released in 2012.
During the 2011-2012 season Europa Galante tours extensively in Europe - Italy, France, Spain, Germany and Poland. They also tour Korea with the English tenor Ian Bostridge, and America with Vivica Genaux including concerts in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Tucson, Denver, Princeton, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Boston and New York's Carnegie Hall. The ensemble will inaugurate the Wurzburg Mozart Festival in June 2012. Their 2011-2012 programmes include Pergolesi's Oratorio La Fenice sul rogo, his opera Lo Frate 'nnamorato, the first modern performances of Vivaldi's L'Oracolo in Messenia in Austria, France and Poland, as well as Bellini's La Norma in Spain.
In the 2012-2013 season, in addition to their numerous European engagements, Europa Galante returns to tour the United States as well as Mexico, Equador and Colombia in South America. Other major events during the season include a performance of Ariosti's opera La Fede nei Tradimenti in Kraków in December 2012, Handel's Imeneo in the Halle Handel festival in June 2013 and an original and exciting new projet, Geminiani's La Foresta Incantata, an instrumental work performed with the projection of a full length animated film that recounts the action-packed 13th canto of Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered.
Concert schedule and further information at www.europagalante.com
April 2012
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Programmes 2012-2013'La Foreste enchantée' - Francesco Saverio Geminiani
[Metz, 20 March, Rome 22 March, Krakow 30 March 2013]
Full length animated film
By Fabio Biondi & Davide Livermore
Animation by Marco Fantozzi - Zenit audiovisivi, Turin
Europa Galante
Fabio Biondi, direction & violin
18 musicians - strings 43221 - 2 flutes, 2 horns, theorbo & harpsichord
In 1754, for the Paris performance of ‘La Forest enchantée’, the architect and stage director Giovanni Niccolò Servandoni deployed all the possibilities the lighting, stage machines, sets and perspectives available at the time in an original format of choreographic pantomime with music by Geminiani to illustrate the 13th canto of Tasso's 'Jerusalem Delivered' (La Gerusalemme liberata).
This is a story of magic, armies and an imaginary world that traces the confrontation between Aladin and Godefroi, the exploits of Renaud and the transformations of Armide, a world of myth and fantasy that will speak clearly to present day audiences.
Although there is no 18th Century stage machinery, the audience will nevertheless see dancing before its eyes scenes and images that will drawn it into the veritable enchanted forest of this animated film, thanks to the dramatic art of Fabio Biondi and Davide Livermore and of Livermore's drawings and paintings, bringing to the screen the same powerful emotion of Geminiani's music in an unparallelled performance by Fabio Biondi and Europa Galante.
!!! YouTube trailer via this link !!!
'La Fede ne Tradimenti' - Attilio Ariosti 1666-1729
[Krakow 19 December 2012]
First performed in Berlin in 1701
Libretto by Girolamo Gigli
Opera in 3 acts
Fernando - Conte di Catiglia - Marianne Beate Kielland, mezzo-soprano
Anagilda - Sorella di Garzia - Roberta Invernizzi, soprano
Elvira - Sorella di Fernando - Lucia Cirillo, soprano
Garzia - Re di Navarra - Johannes Weisser, bass
Europa Galante
Fabio Biondi, direction & violin
12 musicians - strings 2111, 2 oboes / flutes, bassoon, viola da gambe, harp, theorbo, harpsichord / organ [also available with 16 musicians - strings 6111]
'Imeneo' - Händel (HWV 41)
[Halle, 15 June 2013 - semi-staged by Davide Livermore]
Opera seria in three acts
Italian libretto adapted from Silvio Stampiglia's 'Imeneo'
First performance at the Lincoln's Inn Fields in London on 22 November 1740. A revised version by Handel was given two concert performances in Dublin on 24 and 31 March 1742. Fabio Biondi is using this revised version of 1742.
Cast (tbc):
Imeneo, Vito Priante, baritone
Tirinto, Ann Hallenberg, mezzosoprano
Rosmene, Ditte Andersen, soprano
Clomiri, Maria Espada, soprano
Argenio, Markus Fink, bass
Europa Galante - Fabio Biondi, violin & direction
17 musicians - strings 43221, 2 oboes, bassoon, theorbo & harpsichord
DE DRESDE A MANNHEIM - The development of the German classical style
HASSE - Simphony fromthe serenade 'Enea in Caonia'
WAGENSEIL - Simphony in A
GRAUN - Concerto for violin in C
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FUX - Overture in F
STAMITZ - Simphony in G 'Mannheim'
GRAUN - Simphony in B flat
Europa Galante
Fabio Biondi, direction & violin
12 musicians - strings 43111, theorbo & harpsichord
Arcangelo Corelli 1653-1713 - 300th anniversary of his death
Concerti Grossi by Corelli & and his most talented pupil, Francesco Geminiani
CORELLI - Concerti Grossi Op 6 N°s 1, 4 & 12
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GEMINIANI - Concerti Grossi Op 3 N°s 2, 3 & 5
Europa Galante
Fabio Biondi, direction & violin
14 musicians - strings 43221, theorbo & harpsichord
'Corelli e l'Arcadia'
Trio Sonatas by Corelli, Geminiani, Scarlatti & Pasquini
Europa Galante
Fabio Biondi & Andrea Rognoni, violin
Maurizio Naddeo, cello
Giangiacomo Pinardi, theorbo
Paola Poncet, harpsichord
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Programmes 2013-2014'Adriano in Siria' - Francesco Maria Veracini
[available as of December 2013]
Europa Galante - Fabio Biondi, direction & violin
Dramma per musica in 3 atti
Libretto - Pietro Metastasio (adapted by Angelo Cori)
Cast (tbc - with the singers of the first performance in brackets) :
ADRIANO (Senesino) - alto - Romina Basso
FARNASPE (Farinelli) - mezzosoprano - Ann Hallenberg
EMIRENA (F. Cuzzoni) - soprano - Désirée Rancatore
SABINA (F. Bertolli) - alto - Sonia Prina
IDALMA (Santini) - mezzosoprano - Lucia Cirillo
OSROA (Montagnana) - baritone - Vito Priante
Europa Galante - strings, 2 traversos, 2 oboes, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, continuo (tbc)
'Adriano in Siria' first performed in London in 1735. This was the first of Veracini's operas in London, put on with his Italian friends by 'Opera of the Nobility' in an attempt to break Handel's hegemony there - Handel put on both Ariodante and Alcina in the same year.
The score of 'Adriano in Siria' has been prepared from an unpublished manuscript in the Henry Watson Library, Manchester, by the German musicologist Holger Schmitt-Hallenberg. The recitatives are composed by Fabio Biondi.
ARGUMENT (Angelo Cori, 1735)
Adrian having conquered the Parthians, was raised to the Throne while he was at Antioch; where, notwithstanding, he was (in Rome) engaged to marry Sabina, Niece of his predecessor; he became enamoured of Emirena, his Capitive Princess, Daughter of the vanquished King, and with great
Earnestness desired the Completion of these Nuptials, under Pretence of its being a necessary band, to establish a lasting Friendship between Asia and Rome; and to that end invited to Antioch the conquered Princes of Asia; particularly Osroa, ather of Emirena. But this barbarous Prince, an
implacable Enemy to the Roman Name, though defeated and without an Home, contemned the Invitation and went o Antioch disguised as an Attendant on Farnaspes, who had been a Tributary Prince to him, whom with Gifts and Entreaties he sollicited to deliver his Captive Daughter, promised before to Farnaspes, that he might have no obstacle to his revenging himself on the new Caesar Adriano.
Sabina, in the Interim, having heard of Adrian's being elected Emperor, and ignorant of his new Passion (for Emirena), flew with Impatience from Rome to meet him in Syria, and to accomplish the desired Nuptials.
The Episode introduces Idalma as another Captive Princess, Friend and Confidant of Emirena; who falling in Love with Adrian, aspires to his Nuptials, and employs all arts which her amorous Passion can suggest, to exasperate Adrian against Sabina and Emirena.
The fluctuating Situation of Adrian, between his love for Emirena and the great obligation which obliged him to return to Sabina; the patient suffering of the latter; the plots o the furious Osroa, which are laid to the charge of the innocent Farnaspes; the Uneasiness of Emirena, one while
on account of her Father Osroa's Danger and at another on that of her Lover's, and the Discovery of the Wiles of the enamoured Idalma, are the Motives, which by Degrees rouze the nodding Virtue of Adrian, who at length gaining a Victory over himself, restores his Enemy to his Kingdom; to his
Rival his Spouse, and pardoning Idalma, restores his Heart to Sabina, and recovers his own Glory.
