| Saturday, November 29 at 8pm ~ New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall
BOSTON EARLY MUSIC FESTIVAL
CHAMBER OPERA SERIES
Venus and Adonis by John Blow
Actéon by Marc-Antoine Charpentier
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| Paul O’Dette |
Stephen Stubbs |
Gilbert Blin |
Paul O’Dette & Stephen Stubbs, Musical Directors
Gilbert Blin, Stage Director
Lucy Graham, Choreographer
Anna Watkins, Costume Designer
In response to overwhelming demand,
the Grammy-nominated Boston Early Music Festival introduces
its annual Chamber Opera Series to the 2008–2009
concert season. Our first presentation offers a double-bill
of two exceptional chamber operas depicting the fates
of two unfortunate young hunters who encounter powerful
goddesses.
In addition to their shared backdrop
of the hunt, Blow’s
Venus and Adonis and Charpentier’s Actéon are
both based on myths that appear in Ovid’s
Metamorphoses and highlight the theme of transformation.
In Blow’s adaptation of the myth of Venus and
Adonis—the earliest surviving English opera—Venus
falls in love with Adonis after being struck by Cupid’s
errant arrow, and then encourages him to hunt the very
wild boar that eventually gores him to death. In Charpentier’s
Actéon, when the title character discovers
the goddess Diane bathing with her attendants in the
woods,
he incurs her wrath when he is transformed into a deer
and torn apart by his own hounds.
Don’t miss
this once-in-a-lifetime semi-staged performance of
these exquisite operatic gems!
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| Amanda Forsythe |
Tyler Duncan |
Aaron Shehan |
Amanda Forsythe as Venus
Tyler Duncan as Adonis
Aaron Sheehan as Actéon
“Everything operagoers and early-music enthusiasts expect in baroque opera.”
– The Berkshire Eagle |
Listen to an excerpt from BEMF’s Grammy-nominated recording of Lully’s Thésée
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