Francesco Cavalli's Erismena is much more than a baroque opera: it is the heart of an ambitious training and transmission project, run jointly by La Cité Bleue and the Haute école de musique de Genève. For several months, singers and instrumentalists from the Early Music Department took part in an intensive study workshop, designed as a veritable laboratory for historical interpretation. Under the guidance of specialist artists and teachers, they immersed themselves in the subtleties of Cavalli's musical language, the art of recitative, ornamentation, prosody and seventeenth-century theatre.
First performed in Venice in 1655, Erismena raconte tells the story of a princess who, disguised as a soldier, sets out to find her lover, Prince Idraspe, who has betrayed her. Set in an imaginary Orient populated by characters with hidden identities, the plot combines love, jealousy, recognition and forgiveness in a story rich in amorous tensions and power plays, and supported by music of great finesse.
The performance of Erismena at La Cité Bleue marks the culmination of this demanding educational programme, and illustrates the shared commitment of our institutions to the training of a new generation of performers specialising in early music.
One hour before Sunday’s performance, join us for an introduction to the work by Leonardo García-Alarcón.
Sunday 29 June at 4pm
Location: Café de La Cité Bleue
Free without registration
Saturday 28 June 2025 at 7.30pm
Sunday 29 June 2025 at 5pm
3 hours, with an intermission
Francesco Cavalli (1602-1676)
Erismena
dramma per musica in Italian in a prologue and three acts
booklet by Aurelio Aureli
Students of the Early Music Department of the HEM
Leonardo García Alarcón, musical director
Jacopo Raffaele, Assistant Music Director
Single rate Tickets 20.-
With the support of the Fondation Radu Lupu.
With the support of Vincent Meyer.
The HEM is supported by the SIGG Foundation and the Haute École spécialisée de Suisse occidentale de Genève.
