A turn on the wheel of fortune

Since moving back to their home on Unter den Linden in 2017, the Staatsoper have devoted a part of each November/December to neglected, forgotten and otherwise obscure operas from the baroque repertoire; the Barocktage series has thus far included works by (among others) Rameau, Purcell and Alessandro Scarlatti, often in high-profile stagings and performed by renowned period specialists. This year’s new production of Il Giustino apparently marks the first time that any opera by Vivaldi has appeared on the stage of the Staatsoper; and while Barbora Horáková’s lively staging kept the action clear and focussed, it was René Jacobs and the musicians of Berlin’s Akademie für Alte Musik whose vivid performances revealed an engaging, immediately accessible work for which no specialist knowledge of eighteenth-century theatre was required.

Vivaldi…