The Turku Music Festival, the oldest consecutively running festival in Finland, will be held for the 60th time next summer, from 8 to 22 Aug 2019. To celebrate this anniversary, the Festival will be giving a sneak preview by bringing to Finland a star-studded Baroque opera cast and the Venetian Baroque orchestra Il pomo d’oro sponsored by novelist Donna Leon. They will perform a concert version of Handel’s opera Agrippina at Turku Concert Hall on Sunday 2 June 2019 at 19.00.
Friends of Baroque opera are in for a treat as the Turku Music Festival presents an international-calibre production of Handel’s Agrippina. The Venetian Baroque orchestra Il pomo d’oro, returning to the Festival for their third visit, will perform a concert version of Handel’s opera Agrippina with top international soloists as part of a grand tour that will take the ensemble to the Philharmonie Luxembourg, the Teatro Real in Madrid, the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, the Théatre des Champs-Élysées in Paris and the Barbican in London.
The cast includes Franco Fagioli, one of the most acclaimed countertenors of our time; bass baritone Luca Pisaroni; countertenor Jakub Józef Orliński; soprano Kathryn Lewek; countertenor Xavier Sabata; bass Andrea Mastroni; and baritone Biagio Pizzuti. The title role is taken by American mezzo Samantha Hankey, who is only 26 years old but is rapidly establishing herself as one of the most interesting singers of her generation. Having won the Glyndebourne Opera Cup in 2018 and received 2nd prize in the Plácido Domingo Operalia competition in 2018, she made her Metropolitan Opera début in multiple productions in the 2018–2019 season (Mefistofele, Adriana Lecouvreur, Carmen, Rheingold, Götterdämmerung and Rigoletto). She also made guest appearances at the Zurich Opera and the Bavarian State Opera.
“Our Festival has a quality-conscious expert audience, and we like to give them unique experiences. We are happy to be able to bring this excellent international production to Finland. The cast is particularly brilliant. We have a special relationship with Il Pomo d’Oro, the Baroque orchestra sponsored by novelist Donna Leon, and young conductor Maxim Emelyanychev has great promise,” says Liisa Ketomäki, Executive Director of the Turku Music Festival.
Händel: Agrippina (concert version) Turku Concert Hall, Sun 2 Jun 2019 at 19.00
Samantha Hankey – Agrippina
Luca Pisaroni – Claudio
Franco Fagioli – Nerone
Kathryn Lewek – Poppea
Xavier Sabata – Ottone
Andrea Mastroni – Pallante
Jakub Jósef Orliński – Narciso
Biagio Pizzuti – Lesbo
Il Pomo d’Oro
Maxim Emelyanychev – harpsichord and conductor
The opera is performed in Italian, with surtitles in Finnish and Swedish.
Tickets for Agrippina go on sale at Lippupiste on 9 Nov at 12.00.
The Turku Music Festival will be held from 8 to 22 August 2019. The programme for this 60th festival is the first to be planned by the Festival’s new artistic director, conductor Klaus Mäkelä. The full programme will be published on 25 Feb 2019.
Further information and interview requests
Further information is available from Executive Director Liisa Ketomäki, , tel. 040 740 6200