The sounds of baroque open the new artistic season of the Warsaw Chamber Opera
September 14 marks the beginning of the new artistic season at the Warsaw Chamber Opera. The opening concert of the 2025/2026 season will be devoted to Baroque music, presenting selected works by George Frideric Handel, Antonio Vivaldi, and Johann Adolph Hasse. That evening, French soprano Catherine Trottmann will perform alongside the Warsaw Chamber Opera’s Early Instruments Ensemble – Musicae Antiquae Collegium Varsoviense (MACV), conducted by Adam Banaszak.
In the historic interiors of the Royal Castle, the audience will hear Handel’s overtures and arias from the operas “Rinaldo,” “Giulio Cesare in Egitto” and “Ariodante.” From the oratorio “Messiah,” the artists will perform one of the most recognizable arias, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion,” first sung in Dublin in 1742. The program also includes less widely known Handel compositions, such as the aria “Calm thou, my soul!… Convey me to some peaceful shore” from the oratorio “Alexander Balus.”
The second part of the concert will feature works of the Italian Baroque: the overture to “L’Olimpiade” and arias from Vivaldi’s operas “La Candace” and “Il Tigrane.” The evening will close with Hasse’s aria “Morte con fiero aspetto” from the opera “Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra,” evoking the Baroque pathos and charged intensity of Cleopatra’s death scene.
After graduating from the Conservatoire National Supérieur in Paris, Catherine Trottmann joined the ensemble of the Vienna State Opera, where she first appeared on stage. Since her debut, she has performed at leading international venues and festivals, including Opéra de Paris, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Carnegie Hall in New York, the Berlin Philharmonie, and the prestigious festivals in Edinburgh and Aix-en-Provence. In the 2025/2026 season, the French soprano will appear, among others, as Ginevra in Handel’s “Ariodante” at the Opéra Royal de Versailles, in a production conducted by the Polish maestro Stefan Plewniak.
Who? What? Where? When?
Opening of the 2025/2026 Artistic Season of the Warsaw Chamber Opera
Date: September 14, 2025
Venue: The Royal Castle in Warsaw