Vivaldi’s “explosive” opera Bajazet comes to Town Hall

Arts Week with Judy Murphy

Vivaldi’s opera, Bajazet, will be performed in Galway’s Town Hall Theatre next Tuesday, January 25, starting at 5pm. It’s a co-production between Irish National Opera (INO) and London’s Royal Opera House, in partnership with the Irish Baroque Orchestra (IBO).

The Artistic Director of the INO, Fergus Sheil, describes Bajazet as “an explosive opera with characters that are larger than life, inhabiting a world of power games, brinkmanship, violence, betrayal, impersonation, disguise, defiance and revenge”.

Lots of drama then in the three-act opera which was first performed in 1735 in Verona.  According to Fergus, that’s “matched with a musical score that jumps off the page. Vivaldi’s vocal writing is as colourful as you expect from the composer of The Four Seasons. He challenges his singers to perform with outstanding virtuosity and the vocal acrobatics drive the drama forward”.

This is the second Vivaldi opera to be staged by the INO – the first was Griselda in 2019, which was also the first time a Vivaldi opera was presented in Ireland.

It’s being conducted by INO Artistic Partner Peter Whelan, who is also Artistic Director of the Irish Baroque Orchestra. He is working with the IBO on this production, as he did with Griselda.

Set in the 14th century, this drama filled with powerful men and strong women begins after the Ottoman sultan, Bajazet, has been defeated by the Tartar prince, Tamerlano. Bajazet and his daughter, Asteria, are now prisoners.

Asteria is in love with a Greek prince, Andronicus, and Bajazet asks him to take care of her, although Andronicus is Tamerlano’s ally.

However, Tamerlano also has designs on Asteria. He’s engaged to another princess, Irene, but intends to break off that engagement to pursue the deposed sultan’s daughter.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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