Jose Antonio Montaño, Lucía Caihuela, and the period instrument orchestra La Madrileña, will present a selection of arias from the DIDONE Project database. This research project, funded by the European Research Council, is directed by Professor Álvaro Torrente at the Complutense University of Madrid and the Complutense Institute of Musical Sciences. Its aim is to explore and determine the compositional techniques used to express emotions in 18th-century serious opera.
Over the past three years, Montaño has closely collaborated with a team of researchers and musicologists from the ICCMU on this project. They have edited around 3,000 arias, the majority of which are unpublished, from dozens of 18th-century composers who set Metastasio’s dramas to music. This joint effort has resulted in the creation of hundreds of operatic titles that enriched theaters across Europe throughout the 18th century.
The event, coinciding with the European Music Day, will take place on June 21st at 1:00 PM in the auditorium of the Fundación Telefónica in Madrid and will be live-streamed. Additionally, it will feature members of the Didone Project team, who will provide a presentation on how to access this database. The database will be available online for anyone interested in exploring this relevant and innovative operatic repertoire.