Performer: Malena Ernman

Béatrice et Bénédict is Hector Berlioz’s last work; he wrote it between 1860 and 1862 for the theatre that patron Edouard Bénazet had built in Baden-Baden, then Germany’s most chic health resort.

Written in 1819 and belonging to the opera seria chapter of Rossini’s career, the florid score of La donna del lago doesn’t so much respond to as resist its unabashedly romantic libretto.

Nikolaus Harnoncourt is the elder statesman of the historical performance movement and one of the pillars of Vienna’s musical scene.