NEWS

Parnassus Arts Productions is pleased to present the concert performance of Caldara's opera Il Venceslao, on Sunday, November 12, 2023, at 19:00 at the Kulturzentrum Herne as part of the Tage der Alten Musik in Herne. The musical direction of this excavation is once again in the hands of Martyna Pastuszka, resident conductor of the Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival 2022, who will conduct the {oh!} Orkiestra! which she founded. The top-class line-up of singers is identical to the Venceslao performances in Gliwice and Vienna in November 2022. The title role will be sung by star countertenor Max Emanuel Cencic, artistic director of Bayreuth Baroque, singer, director, producer, impresario and recently on tour with Cecilia Bartoli in Giulio Cesare. Two other fantastic countertenors will be heard in this production: The MET-experienced Nicholas Tamagna creates the role of Casimiro. Nicholas sang the title role of Giovanni Legrenzi's Il Giustino at Pinchgut Opera Sydney in May 2023 and can currently be heard as the refugee in The Flight at Staatstheater Oldenburg. The 23-year-old male soprano Dennis Orellana from Honduras, who already sang at La Scala di Milano and at the Salzburg Festival, is currently preparing Darius in rehearsals for Keiser's Nebucadnezzar at the Schlosstheater Schwetzingen in a production by the Theater Heidelberg, lends his angelic voice to the role of Alessandro.

The young French soprano Suzanne Jerosme, who can currently be seen as Phildel in King Arthur at Theater Aachen, will sing the role of Lucinda, and the German tenor Stefan Sbonnik, who will soon be heard in Keiser's Nebucadnezar in Heidelberg/ Schwetzingen and in the title role of Mitridate, re di ponto in Brussels, will interpret the role of Fernando. The Croatian contralto Sonja Runje, who lives in Stuttgart, will delight audiences as Erenice. After her maternity leave, great roles such as the title role in Handel's Giulio Cesare at the Cologne Opera, Farnace in Mitridate ri di ponto at the Opera de Lausanne, Bradamante in Orlando Furioso at Bayreuth Baroque, Egeo in Teseo at the Handel Festival Halle await Sonja. The bass role of Gismondo is in the proven hands of Pavel Kudinov. Pavel is currently singing Sparafucile in Rigoletto, an important bass role from the Verdi repertoire, at Oper Bonn and will be singing Gremin in a new production of Eugene Onegin from February 2024.

We are delighted to be able to present this production with the {oh!} Orkiestra!, a young, dynamic baroque orchestra performing on period instruments.

Here is an overview of the line-up:

Musical direction: Martyna Pastuszka
Venceslao: Max Emanuel Cencic
Lucinda: Suzanne Jerosme
Casimiro: Nicholas Tamagna
Fernando: Stefan Sbonnik
Erenice: Sonja Runje
Gismondo: Pavel Kudinov
Alessandro: Dennis Orellana

Orchestra: {oh!} Orkiestra

We wish all the wonderful artists involved every success and the audience in Herne a wonderful journey of discovery into the operatic work of the baroque composer Antonio Caldara and a spectacular evening of opera with Il Venceslao.