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: Emöke Baráth

Hungarian Winner at the 2nd International Singing Competition for Baroque Opera Pietro Antonio Cesti

The winner of the 2nd International Singing Competition for Baroque Opera Pietro Antonio Cesti, held by the 2011 Innsbruck Festival of Early Music comes from Hungary: At the final concert, 25-year-old soprano Emöke Baráth impressed the jury as well as the audience with her outstanding performance. She received the 1st prize, which includes prize money of 4,000 euros, as well as the special prize directly voted by the audience, worth 1,000 euros.
The only singing competition for baroque opera worldwide was again dominated by female artists. The 2nd prize (3,000 euros) was awarded to the 29-year-old Israeli soprano Tehila Nini Goldstein. The 3rd prize (2,000 euros) went to the 29-year-old Italian mezzo-soprano Romina Tomasoni. The Atle Vestersjø Young Artists Award, also awarded by the jury, went to the 22-year-old Italian Anna Maria Sarra. The special prize from the Wiener Konzerthaus for an appearance in a concert during the 2012 Vienna Resonanzen Festival was awarded to the 24-year-old countertenor from Great Britain, Rupert Enticknap.

All in all, 71 singers from 27 countries came to Innsbruck to be judged by the high-class jury, consisting of Alessandro De Marchi, conductor, artistic director of the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music, Sophie de Lint, designated opera director from 2012/13 of the Zurich Opera House, Claude Cortese, artistic director of the Angers Nantes Opera, Alan Curtis, conductor, Paolo Monacchi, artist manager, Paris, Joshua Winograde, director of artistic administration and casting at the Los Angeles Opera, and the chairman of the jury Sebastian F. Schwarz, director of artistic administration and casting at the Theater an der Wien.

2nd International Singing Competition for Baroque Opera Pietro Antonio Cesti 2011, Innsbruck:

1st prize: Emöke Baráth (soprano, Hungary, 25 years old)
2nd prize: Tehila Nini Goldstein (soprano, Israel/USA, 29 years old)
3rd prize: Romina Tomasoni (mezzo-soprano, Italy, 29 years old)

Atle Vestersjø Young Artists Award: Anna Maria Sarra (soprano, Italy, 22 years old)

Audience prize: Emöke Baráth (soprano, Hungary, 25 years old)

Special prize: concert during the 2012 Vienna Resonanzen Festival at the Wiener Konzerthaus: Rupert Enticknap (countertenor, Great Britain, 24 years old)

The ten finalists were not only judged by the jury
More than 120 competitors from 34 countries sought to make it into the finals. Only ten of them succeeded in this task and were judged not only by the jury but also by the audience in the concert hall, as well as by enthusiastic baroque opera fans at their computer screens at home. Thanks to the cooperation with the Innsbruck Media College, tirol.orf.at and the online-streaming provider INNCAST, the competition was broadcast directly on the website of the Innsbruck Festival. All those who missed this evening have the possibility to watch the stream of the entire final concert during the next few days on altemusik.at. The video is played in a loop.

The top ten
Emöke Baráth, soprano (Hungary, 25 years old)
Giuseppina Bridelli, mezzo-soprano (Italy, 25 years old)
Rupert Enticknap, soprano (Great Britain, 24 years old)
Sharvit Hagar, mezzo-soprano (Israel/Germany, 24 years old)
Benedetta Mazzucato, alto (Italy, 22 years old)
Filippo Mineccia, countertenor (Italy, 30 years old)
Tehila Nini Goldstein, soprano (Israel/USA, 29 years old)
Anna Maria Sarra, soprano (Italy, 22 years old)
Romina Tomasoni, mezzo-soprano (Italy, 29 years old)
Martin Vanberg, tenor (Sweden, 32 years old)

And the winner is:

1st Prize: Emöke Baráth (Soprano, Hungary, 25)

2nd Prize: Tehila Nini Goldstein (Soprano, Israel/USA, 29)

3rd Prize: Romina Tomasoni (Mezzosoprano, Italy, 29)

Atle Verstersjo Young Talent Award: Anna Maria Sarra (Soprano, Italy, 22)

Audience Prize: Emöke Baráth (Soprano, Hungary, 25)

Special Prize: Concert within the scope of the RESONANZEN WIEN 2012: Rupert Enticknap (Countertenor, Great Britian, 24)

: (v.l.n.r.) Landesrätin Beate Palfrader, Landeshauptmann Günter Platter, Margit Fischer, Bundespräsident Heinz Fischer, Bürgermeisterin Christine Oppitz-Plörer und Geschäftsführerin der Festwochen Christa Redik

A journey to a new “Early Music”

35th Innsbruck Festival of Early Music opened by President Fischer at Ambras Castle
INNSBRUCK – Today, in the presence of President Heinz Fischer, the 35th Innsbruck Festival of Early Music has been opened at the Spanish Hall of Ambras Castle. Quantum physicist Anton Zeilinger delivered the opening speech, pointing out the common ground of magic moments in music and in science. Zeilinger talked about the past and the future and raised the question whether in 300 years the term “Early Music” will still refer to the same type of music as it does today. According to Zeilinger, this is very difficult to predict and this subject is inseparably connected to the history of thought. Every time that something unexpected happens, it can be called a magic moment, no matter if that is in art or in science. Zeilinger emphasised that he wishes that “we will continue to be amazed” and that we will experience many more magic moments in the future.
Tyrolean governor Günther Platter underlined the importance of the Tyrol as a cultural region and he feels proud of the “internationally acknowledged Festival”. Mayor Christine Oppitz-Plörer pointed out the high quality of life in the city and emphasised the importance of art and culture. She is very happy about the fact that Innsbruck is a mecca for Early Music and that the alpine capital attracts visitors from far and wide. The opening ceremony was accompanied by musical offerings, played by artistic director Alessandro De Marchi himself.
About 400 invitees gathered for the ceremony in the garden of the renaissance castle in excellent weather. The 35th Innsbruck Festival with the motto “Magic moments” is dedicated to the works of German composers. From August 10 to August 28, it offers four opera productions, numerous concerts of Early Music and an extensive fringe programme. Tonight, Telemann’s opera “Flavius Bertaridus, King of the Lombards” will premiere at the Tyrolean State Theatre.

For the first time, the audience of the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music will be able to watch parts of the festival programme in their living rooms. The cooperation with the Innsbruck Media College, tirol.orf.at and INNCAST makes it possible for everyone at home to watch the final concert and the Awards Ceremony of the 2nd International Singing Competition for Baroque Opera Pietro Antonio Cesti on 25 August via altemusik.at. Just switch on your computer, browse altemusik.at and from 7 p.m. watch the final concert live. Thanks to INNCAST the concert is broadcasted worldwide and without any limitations. With students of the Media College showing their abilities on the cameras and tirol.orf.at giving advice to the young media artists on editing the footage, the event will be well covered.

Live@home: Just visit altemusik.at, watch the streaming video and cheer for your favourite singer.

: Anna Gorbachyova, winner of the Singing Competition 2010, will sing the titel role in Francesco Cavallis' „La Calisto“.

: Finalist in 2010 Marie Sophie Pollak; will this year appear as Vespetta in Telemann's Intermezzo "Pimpinone".

97 young singers from 34 countries will attend the 2nd International Singing Competition for Baroque Opera Pietro Antonio Cesti 2011!

The 2nd International Singing Competition for Baroque Opera Pietro Antonio Cesti 2011, held by the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music, has drawn a strong response from young singers worldwide. Out of the more than 120 applications, 97 young singers from 34 countries and five continents were chosen to participate in the 1st round. From 20 to 25 August, female singers (born 1980 and later) and male singers (born 1978 and later), who come from “A” as in Armenia to “U” as in USA, will face the jury in this Academy Project.

Once again, some of the singers will be highly experienced, having worked with leading musical personalities such as Alan Curtis, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Marc Minkowski, William Christie, Thomas Hengelbrock, René Jacobs, Philip Pickett, Jordi Savall, Fabio Biondi, Richard Egarr, Andrea Marcon and Ingo Metzmacher, as well as with famous ensembles such as Akademie der Alten Musik Berlin, Freiburger Barockorchester, Les Arts Florissants, English Concert, La Venexiana, New London Consort, La Cetra Barockorchester Basel and Balthasar Neumann Ensemble. The singers gave concerts as soloists in venues such as the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Berlin Konzerthaus, the Essen Philharmonie, the Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Barbican Center, the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, the Cité de la Musique in Aix-en-Provence, the Leipzig Gewandhaus, the Styriarte, the Boston Early Music Festival and the Göttingen International Handel Festival. They had engagements as opera singers in the Hungarian State Opera House in Budapest, the Hamburg State Opera, the Berlin State Opera Unter den Linden, the Vienna Volksoper, the Theater an der Wien, the Copenhagen Opera House, the Zurich Opera House, the Dresden Semperoper, the Frankfurt Opera House, La Scala in Milan and the Teatro La Fenice.

The final concert is open to the public and will take place on 25 August (7 p.m., Tiroler Landeskonservatorium). The winner of a special prize will be voted directly by the audience. The 97 singers will be competing for three main prizes (4,000 euros, 3,000 euros and 2,000 euros), the Atle Vestersjø Young Artists Award (1,500 euros), the audience prize (1,000 euros) as well as special prizes from the Vienna Resonanzen Festival, the Musikfestspiele Potsdam-Sanssouci, the Theater an der Wien and the BAROQUE OPERA:YOUNG of the 2012 Innsbruck Festival of Early Music. These prizes are connected to follow-up engagements at the mentioned festivals and venues.

The repertoire in the competition comprises arias and scenes from baroque operas by George Frideric Handel, Claudio Monteverdi, Henry Purcell, Francesco Cavalli, Pietro Antonio Cesti and Antonio Vivaldi. The focus lies on Monteverdi’s “L’Incoronazione di Poppea”, which will be performed in 2012 as a part of BAROQUE OPERA:YOUNG, a project of the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music. The first two rounds will be taking place from 21 to 23 August. On 24 August, there is a preparation round for the finals and on 25 August, the final round will take place, with ten finalists competing against each other.

The high-class jury is composed of renowned representatives of the baroque opera scene:
Alessandro De Marchi, conductor, artistic director of the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music, Sophie de Lint, designated opera director from 2012/13 of the Zurich Opera House, Claude Cortese, artistic director of the Angers Nantes Opera, Alan Curtis, conductor, Paolo Monacchi, artist manager, Paris,
Joshua Winograde, director of artistic administration and casting at the Los Angeles Opera, and the chairman of the jury Sebastian F. Schwarz, director of artistic administration and casting at the Theater an der Wien.

Magic Moments in 2011

With a focus on baroque music from German lands at the 2011 Innsbruck Festival, artistic director Alessandro de Marchi also throws light on revolutionary political and social events that impacted on the lives and work of the musicians of that time: Georg Philipp Telemann, for example, was the first composer to self-confidently represent the rising bourgeoisie in cities like Frankfurt and Hamburg with his music. The imposing church music and magnificent operas by George Frederic Handel (both in Italy and in London) and Johann Adolph Hasse (in Italy, Dresden and for the Habsburgs in Austria) on the other hand, reflected the refined rule of the church and nobility. A composer of the likes of Heinrich Schütz used mighty and splendid musical means to raise voices in song against the Thirty Years’ War and its repercussions while Dietrich Buxtehude provided the believers of the Reformed faith in Germany’s upper north with music for contemplation. Finally, Johann Sebastian Bach set the conditions of musical performance practice against new artistic and intellectual demands that apply to this day.  

Operas
Alessandro De Marchi has been active as an opera conductor at the great German opera houses in Hamburg, Dresden and Berlin for many years. For the 2011 Innsbruck Festival he rediscovers Georg Philipp Telemann’s opera seria “Flavius Bertaridus, König der Langobarden” [King of the Lombards], which was first performed in Hamburg in 1729. Johann Adolph Hasse’s opera “Romolo ed Ersilia”, to be conducted by Attilio Cremonesi, provides a link to the musical history of Innsbruck, where the work was first performed in 1765. It had been commissioned by Empress Maria Theresia on the occasion of Archduke Leopold’s wedding with the Spanish Princess Maria Ludovica. Both operas will premiere as new productions at the 2011 Innsbruck Festival. Telemann’s opera is a co-production between the Innsbruck Festival and the Hamburg State Opera. Besides these two exciting games of power and love and the power of love, the first BAROQUE OPERA:YOUNG with selected singers from last year’s Singing Competition for Baroque Opera Pietro Antonio Cesti also promises to be a pinnacle: in Francesco Cavalli’s Italian operatic comedy “La Calisto”, the father of the gods, Jupiter, ends up immortalising the nymph he desires as the star sign of the Great Bear in the sky. The musical direction of Cavalli’s work is in the able hands of the Italian Andrea Marchiol, an opera veteran.  Another baroque opera will be performed in the scope of the 2011 Festival concerts. Telemann’s musical comedy “Pimpinone oder die Ungleiche Heirat” [Pimpinone, or The Unequal Marriage], first performed in 1725 in Hamburg as a comic interlude for Handel’s opera “Tamerlano”, will be shown in a semi-concertante version on the stage of the Spanish Hall at Ambras Castle. This production is further evidence of the success of last year’s Cesti competition in that the female lead will be sung by Marie-Sophie Pollak, one of the finalists of the 2010 competition.  

Concerts
With reference to the operas, the Ambras Castle Concerts and the Festival concerts present baroque music mainly from German lands and from some neighbouring countries. The complex music of several centuries, from the French Flemish Renaissance masters through to the fore-runners of the classical period, is linked beyond time on account of the great synthesis of emotive expression and ingenious compositional technique, of affect and contrapuntal style. Music in which the soul and the mind, the world of emotion and of thought become one. The 2011 programme is a cornucopia of cantatas by Handel, Telemann, Buxtehude and A. Scarlatti, with several members of the Bach family, as well as Biber, Schmelzer, Froberger and Benda leaving their mark in the form of instrumental masterpieces. Furthermore, Gregorian music is on the agenda as well as magnificent vocal polyphony by Isaac, Vaet, Schütz, Handel and J. S. Bach.  Interpreters
Attempting to afford the audience pinnacles, original orchestras such as the Academia Montis Regalis, Café Zimmermann, Ensemble Astrée, the vocal Dufay Ensemble Freiburg, The Rare Fruits Council ensemble, the Tölz Boys’ Choir, Moderntimes_1800 and soloists including singers Bettina Pahn, Robin Johannsen, Maîte Beaumont, Mariselle Martinez, Nina Bernsteiner, Ann-Beth Solvang, Anna Gorbachyova (winner of last year’s Cesti competition) and Antonio Abete, as well as violinists Midori Seiler and Manfredo Kraemer, flautist Linde Brunmayr-Tutz and – not only as musical directors but also as harpsichordists – Alessandro De Marchi, Attilio Cremonesi and Giorgio Tabacco will be performing during the Festival summer of 2011.   

Concert venues
In 2011, Stams Monastery and the Wilten collegiate church are once more included in the list of historical locations that provide the distinctive ambience for concert performances of the Innsbruck Festival. The central venue will once again be the Renaissance castle Ambras, home to the incomparable Spanish Hall and St Nicholas Chapel. Other concert venues include the well-known Silver Chapel and the Giant Hall of the Imperial Palace. New additions this year are the Guards’ Hall and the Gothic Cellar of the Imperial Palace, the Baroque Hall in Grand Hotel Europa, and the inner courtyard of the Theological Faculty, serving as an open-air arena. Two opera productions and the Open Mind concert will take place in the modern building of the Tiroler Landestheater.   

Supporting programme
An attractive range of side events will be held in public places in the town centre and in churches to accompany the Festival programme again in 2011. Halfway through the Festival, the traditional castle feast will take place at Ambras Castle.

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Magic Moments in 2011

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