11/22, Friday, 8pm. All by chance, I got hold of a free ticket to this concert at Benaroya Hall which I would not normally go. I enjoyed it very much. Well, not enough to turn me to a fan of early music. The owner of the ticket came down from BC for the weekend in order to attend this concert. One performance only in PNW, on tour of Boston Early Music Festival Chamber Ensemble with Philippe Jaroussky, countertenor & Amanda Forsythe, soprano. A collection of arias from operas about Orpheus, by Claudio Monteverdi, Luigi Rossi, and Antonio Sartorio, composers that I've never heard of.The two singers have amazing voice, and graceful stage presence. At the end of the concert, they sang a duet from a Monteverdi opera, with words in the gist of "I finally see you". It was probably the most beautiful song of the night. A slight note: Amanda wore a beautiful blue-green dress; Philippe changed his shirt from white to black during intermission, same black suit.
Also went to the pre-concert lecture at 7pm. Certainly helped me appreciate tonight's performance. Both BEMP's artistic directors Paul O'Dette and Stephen Stubbs talked about the birth of opera, and how the story of Orpheus is so critical to the early operas. They also talked about the instruments, lute and theorbo, which they used tonight.
