Teatro del mondo

Between Naples, Madrid and Venice
G. F. Händel, A. Vivaldi, B. Marcello, T. Albinoni

María Espada - soprano
VESPRES D'ARNADÍ (Spain)
Pere Saragossa – hautbois
Farran Sylvan James – solo violin
Lina Tur Bonet – violin
Natan Paruzel – viola
Oleguer Aymamí – cello
Dani Espasa – harpsichord, artistic director

Monday 25. 7. 2016, 20.00
Troja Chateau
Prague 7, U Trojského zámku 1, čp. 2

In collaboration with the Embassy of Spain in Prague, the Institute Cervantes Prague, Prague City Gallery and kindly supported by OHL Czech Republic.

Musicians have always been a travelled lot. The busiest and most restless among them sometimes even had difficulties remembering where their original home was. Music, however, makes no such distinctions: it is home anywhere in the world, as the fates of many of the famous Venetians and other globe-trotters like Baldassare Galuppi, Tomaso Albinoni, Domenico Scarlatti, Antonio Vivaldi, and George Frideric Haendel prove. At the end of July, Vespres d’Arnadí from Spain took us to the crossroads of Baroque musical journeys, Venice, Naples, and Madrid. Vespres d’Arnadí takes its name from the legendary dessert from southern Valencia. The voice of the illustrious Spanish soprano María Espada in the beautiful acoustic of the Troja Chateau in Prague sounded just as delicious.

Concert Programme

Tomaso Albinoni (1671–1751)
Sinfonia in g minor

Georg Friedrich Händel (1685–1759)
cantata Agrippina condotta a morire
Agrippina
Ballo
Se giunge un dispetto

Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741)
Concerto for oboe and violin in B flat major

Domenico Scarlatti (1685–1757)
cantata Fille già più non parlo

Alessandro Marcello (1673–1747)
Concerto for oboe in d minor

Baldassare Galuppi (1706–1785)
“Non curo l’affetto d’un timido amante”

Baroque Gems with Spanish Spirit
Opera PLUS, 26. 7. 2016, Čeněk Svoboda

The attention of the listeners was intrigued especially by the brilliant sound and the spontaneous performace of the ensemble whose members as if breathed together and were immersed in the music form the first till the last note. […] Most remarkable was the performance by the soprano María Espada. In the first half of the concert she sang a long and technically demanding cantata Dunque sará pur vero by Handel. […]
María Espada boasts a flexible, captivating voice and a gift for dramatic expression. Her wailing, drawn notes without vibrato were sometimes almost over the top, but they perfectly captured the naturalistic character of the baroque aesthetic. Her high notes made one’s blood run, especially when they expressed a strong emotion […] I realized how seldom such a truthful performance can be heard from a soprano, and how often musicacl emotions get lost in an artificial pathos or excessive vibrato. I suppose (and the long applause would support this impression) that the genuine musicality of the Spanich soloist affected most of the listeners in a similar way. [...]