Our Monteverdi Project continues with four superb works marrying musical drama and courtly dance. In the main work, ll ballo delle ingrate, written for Mantua in 1608 and revised for Vienna in 1636, Cupid and his mother Venus visit the Underworld, persuading Pluto to release the spirits of hard-hearted women as a warning to the audience. They dance out their grief until Pluto commands them to return, whereupon one of them turns and sings a heartrending lament. The shorter ballets celebrate various aspects of love in irresistible song and dance.

Regular SVF soloists are joined by Helen Charlston (as Venus in Il ballo delle ingrate), who starred in our performance of Eccles’s Semele in May and recently won the prestigious Handel Singing Competition. The John Jenkins Consort is amplified by a sumptuous continuo group of lutenists and keyboard players drawn from conservatoire students led and mentored by Fred Jacobs and Peter Holman.

Concert supported by Mistley Thorn & Lucca Enoteca and donors to The Monteverdi Project Fund

Tickets £20 (reserved), £14 (unreserved)
half-price for full-time students