Ovid’s poetry as a source of inspiration for baroque artists will be one of the thematic pillars, involving five performances. The Festival opens with “A l’Ombre d’un Ormeau”, pastoral songs and contredanses from the 17th and 18th centuries performed by the Ensemble Les Musiciens de Saint-Julien conducted by François Lazarevitch (13 Sep.).

Of note during the month of September is the presence of Christina Pluhar’s L’Arpeggiata with the countertenor Philippe Jaroussky, who will perform works from the Italian Seicento (14 Sep.). On 20 September the Ensemble Les Lunaisiens conducted by Jean-François Novelli and Arnaud Marzorati, will present “Métamorphoses, Concert Optique”, an interesting idea in which the music of Rameau, Monteclair and Clérambault will be combined with the projection of the Lumières’ Magic Lantern in order to visualise the sounds and harmonies.

The concert Nova Métamorfosi (28 Sep.), performed by Vincent Dumestre and his Ensemble Le Poème Harmonique, consists of sacred music from Milan at the beginning of the 17th century, a period in which emotional and rhetorical force was introduced in the search for a new kind of spirituality. In October, Marie-Geneviève Massé’s Compagnie l’Éventail will present an encounter between the music of Bach and Vivaldi called “Dialogues”, generating a choreographic piece conceived as a reflection on time and movement (5 Oct.).

Jean-Denis Monory and his company Fabrique à Théâtre, will stage Molière’s Les Femmes Savantes (9 & 10 Oct.). The Ensemble Les Caractères conducted by Xavier Julien-Laferrière will perform As variedades de Proteu attributed to Antonio Texeira and Antonio Jose Da Silva, providing a taste of Portuguese comic opera from the beginning of the 18th century (18 Oct.).

Dafne, the opera or “musical fable” by Marco Da Gagliano, created for the 1608 Mantua Carnival, and performed by the Ensemble Fuoco e Cenere conducted by Jay Bernfeld with the mezzo-soprano Guillemette Laurens as soloist, will “bring down the curtain” on the Festival on 19 October. Complementing the concert programme will be a baroque-theatre workshop directed by professional and amateur actors (from 22 to 29 August) and a cycle of lectures on the history of baroque music organised in collaboration with the Université Inter-Ages de Pontoise.

For further information, visit: www.festivalbaroque-pontoise.fr