I grew up musically in a university environment. In American universities the performance of music is not only encouraged, but rewarded in a way that it can’t be in a European university, where musicology is pretty restricted. The good thing about the American system is that musicology is exposed to practical music and vice versa. My good fortune was to be trained in two universities where there was a good exchange between music history and performance. I then went to Berkeley at a time when it was possible to push them more in that direction [Curtis began teaching at Berkeley in 1960] with things like the founding of the Philharmonic Baroque Orchestra.

Does your interest in Italian music date from that period?

Well, in the sense that my first successful concert at Berkeley was the madrigal comedy La pazzia senile by Banchieri, which we got the idea of doing with a group of madrigalists elegantly costumed to one side and the action performed in mime by people dressed as commedia del arte characters. It was a big success and everyone was surprised by it. That gave me the courage and ambition to take on a much bigger project, Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea and we did it a couple of years later at Berkeley. I think it was the first time the opera had been heard in California, but it was certainly the first time anywhere in the world that it had been done with the original small forces the composer wrote for, with instruments other than the continuo playing only in the ritornelli. Some people still can’t accept this, but meanwhile it has become viable to do Monteverdi as it was intended to be done. So that was another milestone for me and led to an abiding interest in opera. It also led directly to my doing some operatic work in Europe, because Gustav Leonhardt, my former harpsichord teacher, had come to visit and heard some tapes of our Poppea. He was scheduled to do the opera in Amsterdam and asked me to bring my edition and my services as second harpsichordist.

What about the vocal forces in those Berkeley performances? The revelation for me on your recording was the use of a female rather than tenor Nerone, which makes the duets with Poppea infinitely more sensual.

That came as part of the evolutionary process. The reason it took me so long to do my edition was that during the course of doing it I got involved with other things and my ideas changed. And that’s an example, because the first time I did it I did use a tenor. But then I wondered if this was necessary and wanted to do it again and have a female Nerone. Many other details have changed and I’m still changing my mind about certain things. I’d like to do a revised edition with more information in it before I die. My work on Poppea began in 1963 ‘ forty years ago!

Have you changed your mind on the most vexed question regarding Poppea, the composer of the famous final duet? I recall last time we spoke you remained convinced it was either Ferrari or Socrate.

I still think that. There have been some scholars who have now come out strongly in favour of Monteverdi, but I don’t think that’s tenable. I think we’re at the point where we accept that he is not its composer.

You’ve lived in Italy for a number of years. How did you come to settle here?

Well, that also goes far back in time. My first trip to Italy was in 1955 and I loved it so much. That’s the simple answer. After that I came back as often as I could, which from around 1963 was every year. Later I lived in Asolo, a beautiful little town in the Veneto and in Venice for a time. For the past four years I’ve lived here in Florence, which is very convenient and central. It’s also a very good place to be, more lively than Venice.