With a long career straddling the high Baroque period, Georg Philipp Telemann was among history’s most prolific composers. One of his last works, the dramatic cantata Ino is a vigorous essay in Sturm und Drang, popular in the 1760s. Soprano Amanda Forsythe talks about this rare and stormy work.
This autumn, you return to the UK to perform with the Academy of Ancient Music in Georg Philip Telemann’s late cantata Ino. Can you talk a little about what first drew you to this unusual piece?
I first sang Ino in a performance at Harvard University, when Phoebe Carrai, the director of the Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra asked me to learn it. I came across it for the second time during Covid, when it was programmed on a Boston Early Music Festival program as a companion piece to Telemann’s Pimpinone. At that time we were only allowed to have a small number of singers on stage, and we had to replace the originally scheduled opera to conform with safety standards. But it turned out to be a blessing because we all fell in love with this dramatic piece, so much so that we decided to record it a couple of years later as the centerpiece of an all-Telemann album, which ended up winning the 2026 Grammy award for best Classical solo vocal album.
Written in 1765, near the end of the composer’s career, the piece straddles the Baroque and early Classical periods. Can you talk a bit about Telemann’s music of this time?
Telemann was really at the height of his powers when he wrote Ino – his creative orchestrations and dramatic instincts show both his mastery of the Baroque and innovativeness, even at the age of 84!
How would you describe Telemann’s vocal writing? Are there significant challenges, given that this is a 35-minute piece for a single soloist and ensemble?
The vocal writing is challenging, because it incorporates a few different styles: dramatic opening and closing arias, sweet inner sections, and very intense, frantic, and wordy recitatives. It is tiring to sing but quite well structured. There are a couple of short instrumental movements that give the singer a chance to rest, and because Telemann’s vocal writing engages both the low and high registers (like Mozart), it’s actually very healthy singing.
The main character, Ino, is the sister of Semele, whose illicit relationship with Jupiter is the origin of Bacchus. This angers Juno, who takes vengeance. Can you talk a little about the mythic story, and Ino as a character?
Juno is so angry with Semele that she wants to punish her sister Ino for raising Bacchus after Semele’s death. The opening recitative finds Ino running for her life – her husband Athamas has been driven mad by Juno, and has killed one of their sons. Ino jumps into the sea to protect her remaining son, and they are both saved by Neptune and turned into sea gods.
The recitative right after she jumps is so desperate – she can’t find her son and is in a panic, which is a relatable experience for any mother. She is humble in accepting her transformation but the character of the music changes after she greets Neptune and thanks him – it becomes very self-assured and powerful.
Do you have a personal favourite passage in the cantata?
I love the closing aria, “Tönt in meine Lobgesang” – it can be so exciting, and I feel the goddess energy flowing through me!
What impression did the cantata make on you when you first came across it? Is there a recording or a memory of a performance that is particularly special to you?
It’s not an overly-recorded or performed piece, so I hadn’t come across it before singing it myself. My first impression when I got the score was “how am I ever going to memorize all of this text?!” Of course, in concert one doesn’t need to be off-book, but it would be very unconvincing to be fumbling with the words while describing a great escape!
With the 1760s came a vogue for Sturm und Drang – or ‘storm and stress’. How does this show up in Telemann’s Ino, and in the vocal writing?
The opening recitative of Ino feels like it was intended for the stage – she describes her husband chasing her while she desperately tries to get away, leaping from rock to rock, while she sees Athamas in pursuit, the blood of their son dripping from his hands. It’s quite graphic and definitely Sturm und Drang.
Can you talk a bit about how you approach historically-informed performance? Instrumentalists adapt their techniques to older instruments, taking guidance from historical sources – what approach do you take as a vocalist?
Like many vocalists, my training was in operatic singing, not specifically Baroque music. I say that my first education came in conservatory, and my second from the wonderful musicians I’ve worked with in my career, who taught me about phrasing, the use of vibrato, ornamentation, and all of the other things that make a singer flourish in this repertoire. I try to adapt my sound to the orchestra, the venue, the other singers, and to just be musical in general.
Why should one come to hear a performance of Telemann’s Ino?
Because it isn’t done very often, and it’s fantastic! It’s hard to program because it’s such a tour de force for the singer, and the orchestra is quite large – horns, flutes, the whole shebang. It’s a whole opera crammed into 35 exciting minutes, performed by one of the greatest ensembles in Europe – don’t miss out!
Amanda Forsythe and the Academy of Ancient Music perform Telemann’s Ino in Cambridge on 30th September, and in London on 1st October, alongside music by Mozart and Haydn.
See more on the Academy of Ancient Music.
This article was sponsored by the Academy of Ancient Music
