On Sunday 5 February 2023 at 17, in Zubin Mehta Hall, maestro Federico Maria Sardelli will be on the podium for a concert tribute to Giovanni Battista Lulli. On the bill, an important program entirely dedicated to the Florentine composer anticipates a world premiere composition dedicated to the memory of Lulli and written by Sardelli

Alongside the maestro, the soloists Elena Bertuzzi, Rui Hoshina, Emma Alessi Innocenti, Aco Bišćević, Alessio Tosi and Mauro Borgioni.
Together with the Maggio Orchestra, the Searching Ensemble Chamber Choir.

The concert is in collaboration with the Giovanni Battista Lulli Institute

Florence, 30 January 2022 – After the two concerts by Marc Albrecht and Ingo Metzmacher and the inaugural opera La finta semplice staged at the Goldoni Theater, the Maggio Carnival Festival continues with an extraordinary concert dedicated to one of the most famous sons of Florence: Giovanni Battista Lulli. On the podium of the Zubin Mehta Hall, Sunday 5 February at 5 pm, the maestro Federico Maria Sardelli, one of the most authoritative international interpreters of the works of the Florentine musician, later naturalized french, will lead the Orchestra del Maggio and the Coro da Camera Ricercare Ensemble. A rich program is on the bill, with three compositions by Lulli preceded by a composition by Sardelli in world premiere performance: the Suite composée à la mémoire immortelle de l’incomparable M:r De Lully for orchestra. This is followed by: Passacaille d’Armide, LWV 71: “Les Plaisirs ont choisi pour asile” for soloists, chorus and orchestra; Omnes gentes LWV 77/10, petit mottet for 2 sopranos, bass and continuo and, in closing, the magnificent Te Deum LWV 55, grand mottet for soloists, small choir, large choir and orchestra.

Six soloists alongside Federico Maria Sardelli during the evening: Elena Bertuzzi, Dessus; Rui Hoshina, Dessus; Emma Alessi Innocenti, Bas-dessus; Aco Bišćević, Haute-contre; Alessio Tosi, Taille; and Mauro Borgioni, Basse.
The maestro of the “Coro da Camera Ricercare Ensemble” is Romano Adami.

The concert is held in collaboration with the Giovanni Battista Lulli Institute, founded on 28 November on the occasion of the 390th anniversary of the birth of the great Florentine composer and directed by Federico Maria Sardelli himself, which celebrates its inauguration on the evening of 5 February official.

“Performing a concert in front of a large audience by a little-known author like Lulli puts you in front of a great responsibility, especially as regards the choice of pieces to be performed – Maestro Sardelli said speaking of the concert program – to be ‘fished’ in the his repertoire: so I tried to ‘divide’ the program into two main parts. The first, profane, and the second part of the show which is instead addressed to Lulli’s sacred music. After my ‘little homage’, which naturally does not fall within the selection criteria for the bill, there is an example of an opera with the great Passacaille d’Armide, a short but powerful and extremely moving piece, representative of the classic tragédie lyrique Lulliane, truly representative of the musician. Then the second part of the show will turn towards the ‘sacred’ Lulli, an important chapter in his production represented with the two ‘poles’, i.e. the petit motet and the grand motet. They are truly delicious, microcosms of affection with para-liturgical texts in which the voices sing together first, only to have the final little recitation as if they were characters in a ‘micro-drama’ set to music. Finally, the marvelous Te deum, Lull’s swan song which makes it perfectly clear how beautiful Lull’s grand motet was, even in its very structure, in addition to the sumptuous and arrogant glory nuanced by moments of enormous intimacy, which make us understand the compositional greatness of this musician.” Federico Maria Sardelli continued and then commented on the Te Deum: “We will therefore perform musical pages of extraordinary beauty; even though I know I’m ‘partisan’ in saying it. Giovanni Battista Lulli is a very Florentine composer who we have almost forgotten in Italy: among the pieces of the concert on February 5, the grandiose Te Deum stands out, perhaps the highlight of the evening and composed in 1677 to solemnize the birthday of King Louis XIV, for soloists, small and large chorus and orchestra and which was in part the ‘deadly’ event in the life of the composer who, striking himself on the foot with the large stick with which he conducted, during a celebratory concert for Luigi’s almost miraculous recovery from illness XIV, he caused himself a bad wound, which in a short time will become infected, leading to his death in 1687.”

So, after a few months, Maestro Sardelli and Giovanni Battista Lulli (or Jean Baptiste-Lully in his French name) return to Maggio, again ‘together’ after the applauded performances of Acis et Galatée, the final work of the 84th Festival of the Maggio Musicale staged last July under the direction of Benjamin Lazar.

Federico Maria Sardelli is also among the most authoritative Italian interpreters of the Baroque repertoire: in 1984 he founded the Baroque orchestra “Modo Antiquo” with which he performs concerts throughout Europe both as a soloist and as conductor in the major early music festivals. Principal guest conductor of the Turin Philharmonic Orchestra, Maestro Sardelli has conducted in some of the main theaters in Europe such as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, the Staatskapelle Halle, the Kammerakademie Potsdam , the Real Filarmonia de Galicia and the orchestra of the Arena di Verona Foundation. He has recorded numerous records for labels such as Naïve and Deutsche Grammophon. He has more than forty record publications to his credit, always as conductor and soloist; very important is its reconstruction and first recording of the Concerti Grossi op. VI of Corelli. In February 1997 in New York, for his album “Vivaldi, Concerti per molti Stromenti”, he received a nomination for the Grammy Awards, the highest recognition for the recording activity; in 2000 a second nomination came to reward his reconstruction of Corelli’s Concerti Grossi.

The concert is in collaboration with the Giovanni Battista Lulli Institute, founded last November 28 on the occasion of the 390th anniversary of the birth of the great Florentine composer and directed by Federico Maria Sardelli himself, which celebrates its official inauguration on the evening of February 5 . In this regard, Sardelli said: “Together with my friend and ‘disciple’ Samuele Lastrucci, we decided to found the Giovanni Battista Lulli Institute to promote the knowledge and music of this great musician. In founding this Institute, I partly wanted to speed up the rediscovery of Lulli, also because the Florentine documents on the first part of his life here in Florence are still very laconic. This concert on February 5, after the summer show of Acis et Galatée staged in July, represents the second stage of this new rebirth of Lulli. We already have contact with the Ensemble musique baroque de Versailles, who already support us by providing us with their scores of critical editions and will come here to give masterclasses. We also have a good bond with the French Institute of Florence, and on Sunday we will have the pleasure of hosting the new consul at the concert.”

In the concert, a full-bodied cast of soloists: Elena Bertuzzi, who with Maggio, directed by maestro Sardelli’s baton, collaborated for the first time in the Intermezzi della pellegrina performed in Boboli in June 2019, graduated in opera singing at the F. E. Dall’ Conservatory Abaco of Verona, he obtained the higher title in Renaissance and Baroque singing at the A. Pedrollo Conservatory of Vicenza, with honors and since 1990 he has dedicated himself to the study of the performance practice of ancient, Renaissance and Baroque music; in 1996 you won the first prize in the competition organized by the Verona Philharmonic Academy. You have given numerous concerts, as a soloist and in chamber ensembles, collaborating with orchestras and specialized groups, in Italy and abroad, participating in important music festivals such as: “Al Bustan” (Beirut, Lebanon); “Cervantino” (Guanajato, Leon, Cuernavaca, Mexico); Santander (Spain); of “Musique Sacre´e” (Fribourg, Switzerland); “Itineraire Baroque” (Pe´rigord, France); Semana de Musica Sacra de la Laguna (Tenerife, Canary Islands); “Allegro” Castilla y Leon`n (Avila and Segovia, Spain); “Resonanzen” (Vienna, Austria); Barocktage Stift Melk (Austria); Mittelfest (Italy); “Greatness and Wonders” (Italy); Music and Poetry in S. Maurizio (Italy) and MiTo, September music (Italy).

Together with her Rui Hoshina, making his debut on the stage of the Teatro del Maggio, collaborated with maestro Sardelli at the Teatro la Fenice in February 2019 during the performances of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Dream of Scipio.

Emma Alessi Innocenti, born and trained musically in Florence, began singing with the children’s choir “The boys singers of Florence”, directed by Marisol Carballo, and collaborated in various opera productions of the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino including Turandot , Carmen, Tosca and La Bohème under the direction of maestro Zubin Mehta and again in Tosca under the direction of Daniel Oren, in addition to the works Pollicino by Henze and Il Piccolo Spazzacamino by Britten. She studied piano at the Liceo Musicale Dante, from which she graduated in 2017 and, in parallel, she studied opera singing under the guidance of Nadia Sturlese. Since 2017 she has been a singing student at the “Luigi Cherubini Conservatory” in Florence, where in December 2020 she obtained the Three-year Degree in Singing, with full marks and honors. In November 2019 she participates in the production of Puccini’s Il Trittico, in the opera Suor Angelica, at the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. In September 2020 she participates in the production of Vivaldi’s L’Olimpiade at the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza, in an opera-studio project held by the International Festival “Vicenza in Lirica”.

Aco Bišćević, making his debut at the Maggio, completed his singing and harpsichord studies at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. He completed his master’s degree in singing in June 2014 with Breda Zakotnik and KS Elisabeth Wilke. In Slovenia he conducted the Aeternum Chamber Choir, with which he won the award for most promising young choir conductor at the Slovenian National Choral Competition 2005. In 2008 he was awarded the “Student Prešeren Award” for his work with the choir, the highest recognition a Slovenian student can obtain. As a member of the “World Youth Choir” he performed, among other things, at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Beijing. Additionally, he was a member of the Salzburger Bachchor, where he also worked as répétiteur with Marc Minkowski, and was a member of the Arnold Schönberg Chor conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Claudio Abbado. On the opera stage, Aco Bišćević made his debut as Triquet in Eugene Onegin by Tchaikovsky in 2009 at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. In 2010 he sang Amoretto in Orfeo ed Euridice at the Styriarte Festival under the direction of Jordi Savall. In October 2011 he sang the role of Aci in Handel’s Aci e Galatea at the Prinzregententheater in Munich. In spring 2012 he performed with Reinhard Goebel in a concert of solo cantatas organized by the Bachgesellschaft Salzburg. He regularly gives Lieder recitals in various chamber music ensembles. In September 2013 he appeared at the Schubert Festival Bad Gastein with Camerata Salzburg and Gérard Korsten. At the 2013 Salzburg Festival, he was part of the Young Singers project and appeared in Die Zauberflöte and in a performance of Die Entführung aus dem Serail for children. He is now active as an opera singer throughout Europe and is dedicating his voice and piano to accompanying the Lied repertoire, as was historically done, in festivals and concert halls.

Alessio Tosi, who returns to Maggio after La Dafne which was staged in Boboli again conducted by maestro Sardelli, brilliantly graduated in singing and vocal chamber music at the “L.Campiani” music conservatory in Mantua. Particularly inclined to the chamber and oratorio repertoire, he has deepened the repertoire of chamber vocal music in Italy and abroad with renowned masters such as Walther Moore, Helge Dorsch, Charles Spencer and Sara Mingardo. Appreciated interpreter of the Baroque repertoire, he collaborates on a regular basis with “La Venexiana” by Claudio Cavina, the “Centro di musica antica Pietà de’ Turchini” in Naples, “Collegium 1704” in Prague directed by Lucks, the chamber choir Namur and Cappella Mediterranea directed by Leonardo Alarcon, the “Coro della Radiotelevisione della Svizzera Italiana” directed by Diego Fasolis and the Capella Reyal de Catalunya directed by Jordi Savall. He has performed in important international festivals: MiTo, Milan and Turin; Ravenna Festival, Ravenna Festival Youth section; Tage Alte Musik Regensburg (Germany); Barokfest Stuttgart (Germany); Mechelen (Belgium); Santander (Spain) and Stresa.
The forays into the chamber vocal repertoire, especially German, but also English, French, Russian and Spanish, are much appreciated.

Mauro Borgioni, like Elena Bertuzzi the protagonist of the Intermezzi della pellegrina performed in Boboli in June 2019 together with maestro Sardelli, studied singing at the “Scuola Civica di Milano” and the “Conservatorio di Cesena”, later perfecting himself at the Fondation Royaumont in Paris . He has collaborated with various ensembles and orchestras including Concerto Italiano, Mantua Chamber Orchestra, Rai Symphony Orchestra, Regional Orchestra of Tuscany and “La Cappella Reial de Catalunya”.
Specialized in the Baroque repertoire, he has interpreted Orfeo in L’Orfeo by Claudio Monteverdi (Teatro Regio of Turin, Teatro Comunale of Ferrara, Teatro Ponchielli of Cremona, Teatre Principal de Palma de Mallorca); Ulysses in Monteverdi’s Il ritorno di Ulisse in patria at the Reate Festival in Rieti and at the Monteverdi Festival in Cremona; Aeneas in Dido & Aeneas by Henry Purcell (Teatro Massimo in Palermo, Teatro Alighieri in Ravenna, Teatro Verdi in Gorizia) and Acrimante in L’Empio punito by Melani (Reate Festival). His repertoire also includes sacred works including Claudio Monteverdi’s Vespro della Beata Vergine; Christmas Oratorio, Matthaus & Johannes Passion, Mass in B minor by Johann Sebastian Bach; Messiah and The Resurrection by Georg Friedrich Handel.

The Coro da Camera Ricercare Ensemble accompanies maestro Federico Maria Sardelli and the Orchestra del Maggio during the evening: established in 1984 in Revere, in the Mantua area, it is one of the most important musical realities in the Italian choral sector. Since 1992, the choir has been directed by maestro Romano Adami. He has participated in festivals and important musical seasons in Italy: Unione Musicale Torino, Accademia Chigiana di Siena, MozartFest (Milan), Tempo d’orchestra (Mantua), Lucca in Musica, At the roots of the ‘900 (Milan, Pisa, Bari) and abroad: France (Paris, Auxerre, Nevers, St.Florentin), Denmark (Copenhagen), Sweden (Stockholm and Uppsala), Czech Republic (Prague and Nymburg) and Germany (Mannheim, Braunschweig, Wolfsburg). He has premiered the mystical oratorio Amor Langueo by Gabrio Taglietti, recorded on disc, and the oratorio La Passione di Paolo VI by Sandro Perotti. He has collaborated and collaborates with important conductors: Umberto Benedetti Michelangeli, Corrado Rovaris, Filippo Maria Bressan, Marc Andreae, Enrico Onofri, Stefano Montanari, Riccardo Frizza, Giovanni Antonini and just Federico Maria Sardelli, as well as with various orchestras: including the Orchestra chamber orchestra of Mantua, I Filarmonici of Verona, the baroque orchestra Accademia degli Invaghiti, the chamber orchestra of Brescia and with the Modo Antiquo orchestra with which in 2016, again under the direction of maestro Sardelli, he participated in the 50 ° Barga Festival and more recently, in June 2019, it also took part in the Intermedi della Pellegrina at Palazzo Pitti in Florence for the 82nd Festival of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.