From the world of the Golden Apple – The music

In an interview, Ottavio Dantone, musical director of the Innsbruck Festwochen, reveals how he brought Pietro Antonio Cesti's seemingly unperformable masterpiece Il pomo d'oro back to life.

Festwochen: The music for two acts has been lost, which is why the work is considered “unperformable”. How did you come up with the idea of recomposing such a work?
Ottavio Dantone: It's not actually correct to say that two acts have been lost. A manuscript has been preserved in Modena that contains a total of 35 arias from the third and fifth acts. This makes it possible to already have an idea of how the restoration can be approached. Based on this music and the complete libretto, I reconstructed the missing music rather than composing it. I looked at all of Cesti's works and searched for arias, fragments or instrumental music that matched the preserved libretto in terms of both metre and musical character. It was a very long and complex task, but in the end, all of the music will be by Cesti.

Is this new composition more science or intuition?
Both. On the one hand, such a reconstruction requires very careful work to find the best analogy between the surviving text and music that was intended for a different situation or occasion. On the other hand, there is certainly also an intuitive and creative component, as the decisions made ultimately lead to a new and original artistic result.

What makes Il pomo d'oro so special from a musical point of view?
One word suffices: diversity.
The opera brings together a variety of characters, instruments, colours, personalities and emotions.

If you want to see, hear and experience this diversity for yourself, you can do so on 7 & 8 August, 11 & 12 August or 15 & 16 August. Tickets are available here.

These were just the first three questions of our interview – in the videos below, Ottavio Dantone goes into more detail about what you can expect in this extraordinary production.