Il Fattoquotidiano

What if the tour de force of French opera in the Age of Enlightenment was Scylla et Glaucus? At the age of 50, the famous violinist Leclair decided to write his first operatic piece, investing irrepressible energy in it. The drama is unrelenting: the nymph Scylla spurns the advances of the Demigod Glaucus, who seeks out the sorceress Circe to cast a spell on her; Circe is in love with Glaucus, drives Scylla to madness and turns her into a deadly rock… An infernal scene, an ocean storm and final cataclysm are employed to give striking relief to this trio of unappeased love, the effusions of irresistible beauty. The conductor and violinist Stefan Plewniak conducts a glorious stage of soloists in the eddies of vengeance!

Johann Wilhelm Hertel is one of the lesser-known composers of the late baroque and early classical era. Born in Eisenach in 1727, as a young man he travelled to the north of Germany with his father, who was a viola da gamba virtuoso engaged as a Kapellmeister at the court of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. Already as a young man Johann Wilhelm showed a remarkable talent for music. He excelled on the harpsichord and violin, but his father wanted him to additionally study law.