In addition to the opera, which Lully originally wrote in 1671 with spoken text (by Molière), but revised in 1678 as a true tragédie lyrique, Boston will host dozens of other early music fringe groups from all over the country in churches, auditoriums and concert halls over a walking radius of a couple of miles.  A draw for the opera, in addition to its being the North American premier, is Karina Gauvin, a Canadian soprano singing the role of Venus. Gauvin has appeared in several of Boston’s early operas and now seems to be a required presence.

Piffaro, performing a single concert at the festival, picks its pieces from the famed Glogauer Liederbuch, a misnamed collection of three part-books (probably the earliest published examples of part-books) written around the third quarter of the fifteenth century. Not all the pieces are identified, but those that are ring of such familiar names as Busnois, Ockeghem, Tinctoris and Dufay. Instrumental pieces (sometimes with vocal incipits) make the best repertoire for Piffaro, a wind band from Philadelphia.

Another wind band, Concerto Palatino, is also scheduled for the festival. Though the ensemble’s program is not yet settled, Giovanni Piruli, a well-traveled Italian composer who moved about Venice, Urbino and even Graz and Vienna, will be represented by his Canzon à 6. It’s a piece flavored with the concertato effects the Gabrielis employed at St. Mark’s in Venice.

The Ariadne Baroque Orchestra, having snagged its name from the 2003 performance of Johann Georg Conradi’s Ariadne in Boston, will fill a number of performances with selected soloists. Matthias Maute, a dexterous magician with the recorder, will be paired with Michael Lynn, no less virtuosic with his flute, in a performance of a Telemann concerto.