German tour, from Regensburg in Germany to Basel in Switzerland, via Austria, for this Whitsun weekend rich in early music! 
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Hotel Metamorphosis in Salzburg
The Salzburg Whitsun Festival opened its Venetian-themed 2025 edition with the premiere of Hotel Metamorphosis. Director Barrie Kosky imagined the show as a pasticcio echoing the musical history of the city of the Doges. Lending himself to this stylistic exercise fashionable in 17th- and 18th-century Venice, the director gathered texts from Ovid’s Metamorphoses and set them to music by Antonio Vivaldi. Bringing together a star-studded cast, the experiment aims to present Vivaldi in a new light, by putting the Latin texts into perspective.
With Cecilia Bartoli, Varduhi Abrahamyan, Lea Desandre, Philippe Jaroussky, Angela Winkler, Il Canto Orfeo, the Musiciens du Prince and Gianluca Capuano.
Deborah in Bayreuth
After Utrecht, Paris and Vienna, our (very!) international tour comes to an end at Bayreuth’s Margraves Opera for the concertante version of Handel’s Deborah, a magnificent work, less often performed, yet of incredible power.
With Sophie Junker, Jakub Józef Orliński, Sophia Patsi, Wolf Matthias Friedrich, Amelia Berridge, Kieran White, Donald Bentvelsen, the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir and Ton Koopman.
Bach father and son in Melk (Austria)
During Whitsuntide, the International Baroque Days at Melk Abbey opened in spectacular fashion in the building’s Great Hall with Bach’s Magnificat father and son by the Vienna Concentus Musicus and Collegium Vocale 1704, conducted by Pablo Heras Casado. This opening marked the start of a series of 17 concerts over the 4 days of the Whitsun weekend, under the banner of Mary and women composers.
With Nuria Rial, Shira Patchornik, Sophie Harmsen, Michael Schade, Johannes Kammler, the Concentus Musicus de Vienne, the Collegium Vocale 1704 and Pablo Heras Casado.
Il convito d’Alessandro à Halle (Germany)
Il convito d’Alessandro, the Italian version of the oratorio Alexander’s Feast, opened the Handel festspiele 2025 in Halle. This Italian adaptation doesn’t stray far from the original English work, retaining the same characters despite a rewritten text. It was an English lord who passed on his love of Handel’s oratorios to the Grand Duke of Tuscany – the future Emperor Leopold II. On April 21, 1768, the first performance of the work on the continent took place just outside Florence, at Lord Cowper’s villa.
With Silvia Porcellini, Luigi Morassi, Guido Dazzini, the Händelfestspielorchester Halle and Attilio Cremonesi.
Collegium Vocale Gent in Basel
At Basel’s Martinskirche, Philippe Herreweghe and the Collegium Vocale Gent opened the first-ever Basel Orpheus Vocal Festival with Anima Mia, a program by Carlo Gesualdo. It’s a well-known fact that the eccentric composer Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa, found his wife and her lover in flagrante delicto in 1590 and put them to death in cold blood. His fourth book of madrigals was premiered in Ferrara shortly after the event, and testifies to an unprecedented and boundless sense of experimentation in capturing the expressive depth of poetry in music.
With the Collegium Vocale Gent and Philippe Herreweghe.
A double anniversary at the Regensburg Early Music Days
Basel’s La Cetra and the Regensburger Domspatzen Choir opened the 40th Anniversary Early Music Days at Regensburg’s Peters’Dom. The choir, for its part, is celebrating its…1050th anniversary this year, having been founded in 975 by Bishop Wolfgang of Regensburg to ensure the succession of ecclesiastics. The program includes a Missa octo vocum by Hans Leo Hassler (1564-1612), as well as pieces by Giovanni Gabrieli, Claudio Monteverdi, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina and Giovanni Croce. Conducted by Andrea Marcon.
With the Regensburger Domspatzen Choir, La Cetra and Andrea Marcon.
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