The 2022 Workshop and Festival was a great success, featuring Venus and Adonis by John Blow as well as a fine concert by our Contrasto Armonico tutors. We thank all the volunteers, the audience, local businesses and participants who made the event run so well. Our next event will be from April 30 to May 6, 2023 and take place in the Denman Island Community Hall. Under direction from our Music Director, Marco Vitale, the workshop participants will perform Il Ballo delle ingrate, a short ballet-opera by Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643).

Additionally they will perform Monteverdi’s four late Madrigali guerrieri et amorosi. Like Il Ballo, those works are also from Book 8 of madrigals.

Il Ballo was written in 1608, a year after Orfeo, the earliest widely performed opera, which we presented in 2018. Il Ballo was commissioned as an entertainment at the wedding of Francesco Gonzaga and Margaret of Savoy in Mantua. Both took part in the dancing. It tells the story of Venus and her son Cupid asking the god of the underworld, Pluto, for help because Cupid’s arrows were no longer having their intended effect. Pluto tells them that the Ingrates or thankless souls were not giving their partners enough love, hence they were condemned to eternity in the underworld. Pluto brings them out of the fearsome mouth of the

underworld to dance and demonstrate what a wretched future can be expected if partners do not give sufficient love.

Additionally, Romeo Ciuffa will tutor a workshop for recorders, and Paul Luchkow will tutor a workshop for strings.