Passione d’amore | Summer festival of old music

ABOUT THE CONCERT

As an inexhaustible source of emotions, passions, dramas and humour, family relationships once provided endless artistic inspiration and drove the intricate plots of operatic themes. In the closing concert of the 26th edition of the Summer Festivities of Early Music, the audience will be taken back in time to the heyday of Italian Baroque opera, featuring excerpts from two works by the genre’s most eminent composers – George Frideric Handel and Antonio Vivaldi.

Listeners can enjoy arias full of love, hatred, betrayal and forgiveness. Both operas – Giulio Cesare in Egitto and Il Giustino – premiered in 1724. And as this is music that ages like fine wine, it will certainly delight a Prague audience after more than 300 years. Arias will be performed by the internationally acclaimed Ukrainian-German soprano Kateryna Kasper and the equally outstanding Czech baritone Roman Hoza, to the accompaniment of the festival’s Czech ensemble in residence, Collegium Marianum, under the direction of Jana Semerádová.

Artists

Kateryna Kasper: soprano

Roman Hoza: baritone

Collegium Marianum: Baroque orchestra

Jana Semerádová: flauto traverso, artistic director

Lenka Torgersen: baroque violin, concert master

COLLEGIUM MARIANUM
Jana Semerádová | artistic director
Lenka Torgersen | concert master
Magdalena Malá, Daniel Podroužek, Vojtěch Jakl, Małgorzata Malke, Viktor Tomek, Jan Hádek | Baroque violin
Andreas Torgersen, Jonáš Kolomý | Baroque viola
Hana Fleková | Baroque cello
Luděk Braný | double bass
Luise Haugh, Vojtěch Podroužek | Baroque oboe
Kryštof Lada | Baroque bassoon
Filip Hrubý | harpsichord
Jan Krejča | theorbo

Programme

Georg Friedrich Händel (1685–1759)
Ouverture
Cleopatra: V’adoro pupille
Cesare: Al lampo dell’armi quest alma guerriera
Cleopatra: Se pietà di me non senti
Achilla: Tu sei il cor
Cleopatra: Da tempeste il legno infranto
Cleopatra & Cesare: Caro! & Bella!
(Giulio Cesare, HWV 17)

Chaconne
(Il Parnasso in festa, HWV 73)

Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741)
Ouverture
Sinfonia
Arianna: Da’ tuoi begl’occhi impara
Giustino: Bel riposo
Arianna: Per noi soave e bella
Anastasio: Sento nel seno
Arianna & Anastasio: In braccio a te la calma
(Il Giustino, RV 717)

Concerto per il flauto traverso „Il Gran Mogol“, RV 431a

Kateryna Kasper

The Ukrainian-German soprano Kateryna Kasper is renowned for her stylistic versatility in opera, oratorio and song. She performs regularly at major opera houses, concert halls and festivals worldwide, earning acclaim for her nuanced interpretations and expressive artistry.
 
Her recent successes include acclaimed debuts at the Staatsoper Berlin in Vivaldi’s Il Giustino and at the Salzburger Festspiele in Mozart’s Great Mass in C minor. She has also debuted roles such as Venus in Mozart’s Ascanio in Alba, and Micaëla in Bizet’s Carmen at Oper Frankfurt. Other notable engagements include Handel’s Aci, Galatea e Polifemo with the Arion Baroque Orchestra in Montreal, as well as performances in Basel and Vienna with the Kammerorchester Basel under René Jacobs.
 
In 2025, Kasper debuts as Elettra in Mozart’s Idomeneo with the Freiburger Barockorchester, and as Piacere in Handel’s Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno with B’Rock Orchestra, with performances at Teatro Real Madrid, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, as well as in Seoul, Tongyeong and Tokyo. Additionally, she makes her debut as Mélisande in Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande at the Longborough Festival Opera.
 
From 2014 to 2024, Kasper was an ensemble member of Oper Frankfurt, where she portrayed a wide range of roles spanning various eras. She also excels in operetta. In oratorio, Kasper e.g. toured extensively with Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with the Freiburger Barockorchester. With Collegium 1704, she performed in Mysliveček’s Abramo ed Isacco.
 
Kateryna Kasper’s concert repertoire spans from Bach’s oratorios and passions to Mahler’s symphonies, as well as works by Haydn, Mozart, Brahms, Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Dvořák, Poulenc and Henze. She has collaborated with leading orchestras and ensembles, including the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Turku Philharmonic Orchestra, Gulbenkian Orquestra, Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música, Ensemble Modern, Holland Baroque and Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin.
 
Kasper is deeply passionate about song repertoire, focusing on German and Ukrainian Romanticism. Her debut album “O wüßt ich doch den Weg zurück…”, featuring romantic songs about childhood and fairy-tale worlds, was recorded with Hilko Dumno on Richard Wagner’s historic Steinway piano in Bayreuth. In 2022, she released recordings of song cycles by Shostakovich and Weinberg with Trio Vivente, Weber’s Freischütz with the Freiburger Barockorchester (awarded the Opus Klassik), and her second song album “Ein süßes Deingedenken”, featuring songs by Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn with Dmitry Ablogin on a historical 1835 fortepiano.
 
Kasper studied with Raisa Kolesnik at the Prokofiev Music Academy in Donetsk, Ukraine, before continuing in Nuremberg with Edith Wiens and in Frankfurt with Hedwig Fassbender. In 2014, she won the prestigious International Mirjam Helin Singing Competition in Helsinki.

The concert is held with the kind support of the Deutsch-Tschechischer Zukunftsfonds.