Baroque Concert 2023
The Baroque Concert 2023 of Ópera de San Miguel, in Santa Amalia.
The first event of Ópera de San Miguel's 2023 season took place on January 14 with a baroque concert by the "Ensamble Santa Amalia", an instrumental quartet formed by graduates and current members of the Academy of Ancient Music of the UNAM: violinist Amadeus Arteaga Meza, harpsichordist and organist Emil Rzajev Lomelí, cellist Rogelio Morales and theorbist Eduardo Corredor.
The excellent vocalists were soprano Jacinta Barbachano and mezzo-soprano Ingrid Fueli, both of them “graduates” of Concurso San Miguel.
The concert began and concluded with music by Claudio Monteverdi: the first segment of the program began with the madrigal 'Si dolce è il tormento' (1624) for soprano and basso continuo, followed by the aria 'Senza Dio che il vero Sole' from the oratorio Il trionfo della morte (1677) by Bonaventura Aliotti, and concluded with the aria 'Se l'aura spira tutta vezzosa' (1630) by Girolamo Frescobaldi.
The first surprise of the evening was the inclusion in the program —curated by the president of Ópera de San Miguel, Álvaro Nieto— of the song 'Wish you were here' by Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour, in an arrangement for baroque instruments and drums played by 18-year-old percussionist Mairead O'Grady.
The ensemble continued with a performance of Georg Friedrich Händel's Passacaille, Suite No. 7 (1720), in an arrangement for instrumental quartet.
Then, the second part of the program began with another surprise: the interpretation of 'Last man on Earth' (2021) by the English alternative rock group Wolf Alice.
And it continued with some selections of baroque opera: 'Tornami a vaggheggiar' and 'Mi lusinga il dolce affetto' from Händel’s Alcina (1735); 'Armatae face et anguibus', from Antonio Vivaldi’s oratorio Juditha triumphans (1716), and concluded with the duet ‘Pur ti miro’ from L'incoronazione di Poppea (1642) by Monteverdi.
With the effusive response of the public that came to the Santa Amalia Ranch near Comonfort, where the concert took place, the artists offered as encores, in another very well articulated sample of crossover, the song 'Another brick on the wall' (1979) by Pink Floyd, and a very original version of the traditional son jarocho 'La bruja' (‘The Witch’), interpreted by this incredible baroque ensemble.
Thus concluded this first event of Ópera de San Miguel's 2023 season, with a selection of pieces that traversed 400 years of musical history, a true Barrock concert.
