16 Jul 2024
As the Monteverdi Choir, English Baroque Soloists and Peter Whelan prepare to perform Handel’s choral epic Israel in Egypt at the Salzburg Festival, we look back over the MCO’s long association with Salzburg.
Performing sacred and secular works stretching from Monteverdi to Mendelssohn, the MCO has brought its wide-ranging repertoire and characteristically dramatic performances to all of the main venues of this remarkable city.
In August 2023 the Monteverdi Choir, Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique and a cast of outstanding soloists, conducted by Dinis Sousa, performed Berlioz’s epic Les Troyens in the Grosses Festspielhaus at the Salzburg Festival as part of a tour of Europe’s most prestigious festivals.
“The highlight of the five-hour evening was, firstly, the fantastic Monteverdi Choir, which impressed from the first note with its overwhelming sound culture, homogeneity, flexibility, precision and impact. Secondly, the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique - the sound of the old instruments is simply stunning.”
– BR Klassik
In July 2022 the Monteverdi Choir, English Baroque Soloists and John Eliot Gardiner performed a programme of Baroque choral masterpieces highlighting the changing musical styles in Italy and Germany in the 17th and early 18th centuries. The performance took place in the magnificent Kollegienkirche as part of the Salzburg Festival.
“The excellent musicians made it easy for you to sink into the beguiling music – or better: in the constantly renegotiated balance between beauty and truth, between evenness of vocal lines and expressive emphasis.”
– Die Presse
In August 2021, the Monteverdi Choir joined forces with the Camerata Salzburg as John Eliot Gardiner led them in two concerts of early Romantic German music by Schumann and Mendelssohn at the Haus für Mozart in the Salzburg Festival.
“The Monteverdi Choir exuded irrepressible power with a crystal clear German diction and a splendid transparency of singing.”
– Salzburger Nachrichten
In June 2019 the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists presented a programme of music for the Pentecost Season in the sublime surroundings of Salzburg Cathedral. The programme consisted of music by Tomás Luis de Victoria and Heinrich Schütz, as well as polyphonic masterpieces by Henry Purcell, J.S. Bach and Claudio Monteverdi.
In January 2018, as part of the Mozarteum Foundation’s Mozartwoche (Mozart Week), the English Baroque Soloists were joined by internationally-acclaimed soloists Antoine Tamestit (Viola) and Isabelle Faust (Violin) along with soprano Angela Hicks in a programme of Mozart symphonies and Sinfonia Concertante performed in the Grosses Festspielhaus.
“Most enlightening to observe.”
Wiener Zeitung
In July 2017, to mark the 450th anniversary of the birth of Monteverdi, the Monteverdi Choir, English Baroque Soloists and an exemplary cast of world-class singers performed the composer’s three surviving operas in the Felsenreitschule at the Salzburg Festival as part of a European tour: L’Orfeo, L’incoronazione di Poppea & Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria.
Salzburg Festival Photos: Marco Borrelli
