Dafne

It is a shared passion for rediscovering forgotten operatic repertoire and a remarkable gift for nurturing young talent that unites the Innsbrucker Festwochen with Jörg Halubek. Their collaboration began with "Octavia", presented as part of Barockoper:Jung 2018. It is therefore only fitting that the three singers in "Dafne" share a common distinction: their success in the Cesti Competition.

Together with his ensemble Il Gusto Barocco, Jörg Halubek now returns to Innsbruck with a project of special significance. Jacopo Peri’s "La Dafne" (1598) is widely regarded as the first true opera in the history of music. The surviving fragments already hint at the revolutionary "stile rappresentativo" — that expressive mode between speech and song through which Peri pioneered an entirely new musical-dramatic language. These scenes form the centerpiece of an evening that also features works by Peri, Marco da Gagliano, and other contemporaries. True to historical practice, just three singers perform all the roles, while instrumental interludes in the style of the Medici intermedios both frame and comment on the unfolding action. The result is an incisive glimpse into the birth of opera — a play of preserved fragments, imaginative reconstruction, and musical metamorphosis.