A Tribute to Alan

Stradella’s "Susanna" in 1979, Monteverdi’s "L’incoronazione di Poppea" in 1980, Landi’s "Sant’Alessio" in 1981, Handel’s "Ariodante" in 1982 and "Rodrigo" in 1984, Cesti’s "Tito" in 1983 and "Semiramide" in 1987, as well as Gluck’s "Armide" in 1985.

Alan Curtis, born on 17 November 1934 in Mason, Michigan, and who passed away on 15 July 2015 in Florence, was not only a gifted harpsichordist, conductor, teacher, and music archaeologist. For the Innsbrucker Festwochen, he pioneered a series of staged opera productions that continues to this day, presenting the aforementioned works here with his Baroque orchestra Il Complesso Barocco. In doing so, he laid the foundations for the musical theatre work of his successors—most notably René Jacobs, Alessandro De Marchi, and Ottavio Dantone.

In 2016, he had been scheduled to conduct Barockoper:Jung. Sadly, fate intervened. And so, in his memory, the orchestra took their places in the harbour setting of Cesti’s "Le nozze in sogno", performing from a boat appropriately named "Alan".

The internationally celebrated singer Anna Bonitatibus—long associated with the festival as both a juror in the Cesti Competition and as a masterclass mentor—worked extensively with the late Alan Curtis, not least on his unfinished project to record the complete operas of Handel. Together with Ottavio Dantone and the Accademia Bizantina, the Italian mezzo-soprano now pays tribute to her "Carissimo Alan". With this concert, filled with exquisite arias and orchestral pieces, they erect a musical monument to a legend of early music and to his "incredible and boundless energy".