La Decima Musa, or The Tenth Muse: Music from the Golden Age of Venetian Opera, 1650-1660

Musica Antica Rotherhithe present music by Francesco Cavalli, Barbara Strozzi, Francesco Lucio, P.A. Ziani and Giovanni Legrenzi - much of it unheard for 370 years - from the golden age of Venetian opera.

Using surviving payment records from Venetian theatres c. 1651 - 1668, Mezzo Camilla Seale and Countertenor Tristram Cooke will be accompaied by an ensemble matching that which you might have seen in an orchestra pit in Venice during the 1650s: two violins, bass violin, a harpsichord, pentagonal virginal, and two theorbos. This performance will feature two original harpsichords from the late sixteenth and early seventeeth centuries loaned from the University of Edinburgh's collections.

Programme

Cavalli: Sinfonia from Artemisia

Cavalli: Mia Speranza from Elena

P.A Ziani: Rodope, Dove sei from Le Fortune di Rodope

Cavalli: Torindo, ove s'in via from Orimonte

Legrenzi: Sarabande I from Op. 4, D major

Lucio: Donne belle e vezzose from Medoro

Cavalli: Se la giu negli abissi

Cavalli: Dolce Frode from Eritrea

Cavalli: Ahi, questo e'l fin amano from Erismena

Strozzi: Eraclito Amoroso

Lucio: Da amorose passione from Medoro

Cavalli: Aure Tacete from Artemisia

Musica Antica Rotherhithe:

Camilla Seale mezzo soprano

Tristram Cooke countertenor

Sophia Mücke violin

Andrew Taheny violin

Harry Buckoke bass violin

Peter Martin theorbo

Jonatan Bougt theorbo

Luke Mitchell harpsichord

Oliver Doyle pentagonal virginals

Featuring - Musica Antica Rotherhithe