Martin Randall Travel

Lucy Crowe Issipile
Katie Bray Eurinome
Mary Bevan Rodope
James Hall Giasone 
Gerald Thompson Learco
Ed Lyon Toante 

Employed for over 30 years at the Hapsburg court in Vienna, Francesco Bartolomeo Conti, originally from Florence, was one of the most gifted composers of his time. But there have been very few modern revivals of his works. The score of L’Issipile, Conti’s last opera, languished in the Austrian National Library until its first modern revival at Wigmore Hall in 2014 revealed its magnificence. Conti’s arias are richly contrapuntal, and there is an unusual abundance of orchestrally accompanied recitatives. The plot is based loosely on a story from Ovid’s Heroïdes and other classical sources: Jason and the Argonauts arrive on the island of Lemnos, where the women seem to have murdered all men in revenge for their adultery with Thracian women while away at war. Queen Hypsipyle falls in love with Jason, but a pirate suitor returns….