Philippe Jaroussky: Still in Love with Baroque, in Ever-New Ways

Twenty years after founding his ensemble Artaserse and almost ten years after establishing the Academy that bears his name, Philippe Jaroussky observes the profound transformation of the Baroque world with detachment and interest. The musicological rigour of the early years has given way to a new urgency: making this music resonate with contemporary sensibilities without betraying it. Between staging, overall identity, passing on knowledge to the younger generation, and reflections on the evolution of recorded music, the musician opens up about today’s struggles: keeping a demanding art form alive in a fragile ecosystem, continuing to believe in discovery, and championing a baroque repertoire that is alive, embodied. This March, at the Zürich Barock Festival, he conducts the ensemble La Scintilla in Handel’s Aci, Galatea e Polifemo.

Modernizing baroque music: remaining faithful while speaking to the present

This “modernization” did not happen only in the pit or in the scores: it also took place on stage, through the spatial and theatrical imagination of directors. When I think of certain recent projects—for example Hotel Metamorphosis around Vivaldi in Salzburg, staged by Barrie Kosky—I see how much it can inspire audiences. And when people dream, when they feel that this music belongs to them, everything opens up: baroque stops being a museum and becomes an experience again.

My ensemble Artaserse: just because my name is Jaroussky doesn’t mean it’s easy!

I chose the name Artaserse for my ensemble almost twenty years ago. Originally, it came from my obsession with Giovanni Carestini, the singer who created the role of Arbace in Vinci’s opera Artaserse. I was looking for a name that would suggest travel, a slightly unusual name. My musicians teased me: “hard to pronounce, nobody knows what it is…”. They were not entirely wrong! But the name imposed itself, and over time it has become clearer, because today people better understand all the work around Metastasio’s repertoire, the librettist, and around the operas of the first half of the eighteenth century.

The story of ensemble Artaserse began with friends from the Paris Conservatoire and then developed. In reality we have always had several formats: a Seicento formation, an eighteenth-century formation… and, depending on the projects, a larger orchestra. I have very vivid memories of my first Giulio Cesare by Handel at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in 2022: four hours of music, the descent into the pit, that almost vertiginous sensation of carrying an entire opera.

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