Pinchgut Opera Pays Homage To Monteverdi

Pinchgut Opera returns to some of its most favoured repertoire following its lauded production of Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 in 2021 as  Artistic Director Erin Helyard creates a musical experience of sublime magnificence, pathos and rhythmic vitality from the great master’s diverse spiritual works.

International award-winning Pinchgut Opera, Australia’s only specialist Baroque opera company, begins its 2022 season with The Spiritual Forest performed in Sydney and Melbourne. The Spiritual Forest is drawn from Monteverdi’s Selva morale e spirituale (1641), his great anthology of liturgical works composed in Venice. It was to be the last collection of Monteverdi’s music published in his lifetime, and represents the final flowering of his great genius. These uniquely inspired works confirmed Monteverdi as the leading composer of his generation, exemplifying his consummate compositional prowess and his ability to put into music the deepest of human emotions.

Erin Helyard, Artistic Director of Pinchgut Opera explains: “Monteverdi called his extraordinary work Selva morale e spirituale, meaning a diverse collection (literally, a ‘forest’) of spiritual works in Latin and moral madrigals in Italian. It’s such a wonderful metaphor, expressing the power, the vitality and the infinite variety of these works, that we simply had to use it as the title of our concert: The Spiritual Forest. It was
Monteverdi’s largest publication of sacred music since his Vespers of 1610, and it demonstrates the composer at the height of his powers, at his most creative and ingenious.

Australia’s premier Baroque vocal ensemble, Cantillation, will include the inaugural Taryn Fiebig Scholar, Chloe Lankshear, along with Pinchgut audience favourites Amy Moore, Anna Fraser, Andrew O’Connor and David Greco. Joining them will be ten of Australia’s finest specialist players of the Orchestra of the Antipodes, led by Erin Helyard to deliver a glorious and meditative sonic experience.

CITY RECITAL HALL, SYDNEY | Sat 2 April at 2pm | Sun 3 April at 5pm
MELBOURNE RECITAL CENTRE | Tues 5 April at 7pm

  will also be available as a digital concert from 21 April 2022 on Pinchgut At Home.

Visit athome.pinchgutopera.com.au for more information.