La Lucrezia

When George Petrou opened the first Festival under his artistic direction with a Gala Concert in 2022, he introduced a soprano from his native Greece who captured the audience’s hearts: Myrsini Margariti. Together with Bruno de Sá, she performed Handel’s cantata Aminta e Fillide to “thunderous applause, loud cries of ‘bravo’ and standing ovations”, as the Göttinger Tageblatt reported. In 2024, she appeared in the Festival opera Sarrasine, winning over the international press as well. The French magazine Baroquiades, for example, praised her “vocal mastery and ability to imbue every note with vibrant energy”.

In this opening concert, Myrsini Margariti presents moving cantatas and arias. Handel’s La Lucrezia (HWV 145) is the furious denunciation by a young woman of her rapist, the son of a tyrannical king. In Vivaldi’s Sorge vermiglia in ciel la bella Aurora, by contrast, a young man suffers as his beloved eludes him. And Morgana’s aria Credete al mio dolore from Handel’s Alcina is likewise a moving expression of unfulfilled longing for love. Myrsini Margariti is accompanied by musicians whom you can also hear in the FestspielOrchester Göttingen: cellist Iason Ioannou, Theodoros Kitsos on theorbo and mandolin, and harpsichordist William Shaw. They also take the spotlight as soloists in Carlo Arrigoni’s Mandolin Sonata and Antonio Vivaldi’s Sonata No. 6 for Cello and Basso Continuo.