Tuesday, September 22
St. Nicolas' Church, 8.00 p.m
Croatian Baroque Ensemble
Mauro Colantonio, viola da gamba and artistic leadership
Lucija Varšić, mezzo-soprano
Helga Korbar, leader
Ana Labazan Brajša, Katarina Kutnar, Doris Tkalčević, Laura Vadjon
Tanja Tortić, Saša Borčić Reba, Ema Smiljanić, Jana Palac, violins
Dagmar Korbar, Asja Frank, violas
Dora Kuzmin Maković, Nika Sutlović, cellos
Pavle Kladarin, double bass
Izidor Erazem Grafenauer, theorbo
Franjo Bilić, harpsichord
Rosso Veneziano
Antonio Vivaldi
Sinfonia from the opera La verità in cimento
Allegro – Andante – Allegro
Concerto, RV 159
Allegro
Solo quella guancia bella
aria from the opera La verità in cimento
Concerto, RV 159
Largo
Sento in seno
aria from the opera Il Giustino
Concerto, RV 159
Allegro
In Somno profundo
recitativ i arija s violom all’inglese iz oratorija Juditha Triumphans
Koncert za violinu i violončelo all’inglese, RV 546
Allegro – Andante – Allegro
Ardo, tacito amante
recitative and aria with viola all'inglese from the opera L'incoronazione di Dario
Concerto madrigalesco RV 129
Adagio – Allegro – Adagio – Allegro
Saprò ben con petto forte
aria from the opera Dorilla in Tempe
Concerto alla Rustica, RV 151
Presto – Adagio - Allegro
Onde chiare che sussurrate
aria from the opera Ercole sul Termodonte
Mauro Colantonio is an Italian gambist and player of historical wind instruments living in Vienna. At the heart of his artistic interests lies the exploration of unconventional sound worlds, ranging from Renaissance and Baroque repertoire to traditional music, with a particular emphasis on improvisation and the expressive potential of musical and theatrical gesture. He studied at the Claudio Abbado Civic School of Music in Milan, the Conservatorium van Amsterdam and the Mozarteum University Salzburg, and has since developed an international career as a soloist, continuo player, conductor and arranger. He performs in leading European concert halls and regularly collaborates with some of the foremost early music ensembles, including Il Giardino Armonico (Giovanni Antonini), Cappella Mediterranea (Leonardo García Alarcón), L’Arpeggiata (Christina Pluhar), Cantar Lontano (Marco Mencoboni), Il Suonar Parlante (Vittorio Ghielmi), La Fonte Musica (Michele Pasotti), La Divine Armonia (Lorenzo Ghielmi), Cappella Claudiana (Luca Pianca), and many others. Among his recent recording projects are Cavalieri’s Rappresentatione di Anima et di Corpo, recorded with Il Giardino Armonico for Decca, an album of sacred motets by Barbara Strozzi with La florida Capella, and a project devoted to the music of Stefano Landi, realised in collaboration with Marco Mencoboni. He is a member of the Croatian Baroque Ensemble and, as artistic director and viola da gamba soloist, frequently conceives and leads innovative concert projects. His most recent project is entitled Rosso Veneziano.
Croatian mezzo-soprano Lucija Varšić grew up in an artistic family. Her passion for early music led her to specialise in the Baroque repertoire, and she is now a sought-after performer collaborating with renowned ensembles such as Concentus Musicus Wien, Bach Collegium Zürich and the Academy of Ancient Music. She completed degrees in Vocal Performance and Historical Performance Practice at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien), where she also appeared in a number of opera productions, including the roles of Dorabella, Dido and Hänsel. As a freelance artist, she has established an international career, performing in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, France, Italy and the United Kingdom. She is the recipient of numerous prizes at national and international competitions. In 2024, she won First Prize and the Audience Prize at the International Baroque Singing Competition in Froville, France, as well as three awards at the International Cesti Competition in Innsbruck. In 2025, she was awarded both First Prize and the Audience Prize at the International Handel Singing Competition in London. She has appeared at festivals including the London Handel Festival, Innsbrucker Festwochen, the International Harnoncourt Festival and the International Baroque Days in Melk, and has performed in prestigious venues such as the Wiener Musikverein, Musikverein Graz and the Wiener Konzerthaus. Recent operatic engagements include appearances at the Festival de Musique Sacrée de Nice, the Innsbrucker Festwochen and the Bregenz Theatre, as well as productions with Teatro Barocco. Alongside her operatic career, Lucija Varšić is an accomplished concert singer with a repertoire encompassing Lieder, oratorio and sacred music. Bach's oratorios and Passions, Mozart's Masses and numerous cantatas form an important part of her concert repertoire, which she has performed throughout Austria, Germany, France and Switzerland.
The Croatian Baroque Ensemble is the country’s foremost ensemble specializing in historically informed performance of Baroque and related repertoire, played on period instruments or their replicas. Founded in 1999, the ensemble brings together a younger generation of musicians passionate about the authentic sound and stylistically conscious interpretation that reflects the spirit and poetics of the era in which the music was composed. The ensemble's artistic director is the renowned violinist Laura Vadjon. Alongside its concert series in Zagreb, featuring carefully curated thematic programmes, the ensemble regularly appears at numerous Croatian festivals as well as at festivals in Austria, Germany, Italy, Hungary, Finland, Sweden, France, Belgium, Slovakia, Estonia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Argentina, Cuba, Bolivia, Spain, and Portugal. Over the past twenty-five years, the Croatian Baroque Ensemble has collaborated with some of the world's leading specialists in early music, including Catherine Mackintosh, Hervé Niquet, Enrico Onofri, Laurence Cummings, Andreas Helm, Rachel Brown, Alessandro Tampieri, Jaap ter Linden, Richard Egarr, Jacques Ogg, Werner Ehrhardt, Marcello Gatti, Stefano Montanari, Aapo Häkkinen, Philip Pickett, David Staff, Theresa Caudle, Russell Gilmour, Peter van Hauwelingen, Mimi Mitchell, Christopher Lawrey, Hugo Hymas, Mitchell Sandler, Shalev Ad-El, Adrian Butterfield, Peter Lönnerberg, Ryo Terakado, David Bates, Andrew Lawrence-King, Benjamin Bayl, Martyna Pastuszka and Fabio Biondi. The ensemble regularly collaborates with numerous vocal soloists, including Krešimir Stražanac, Ivana Lazar, Monika Runje, Diana Haller Barić, Bilić, Hrkać, Lucić and Čargo, as well as with the Antiphonus Vocal Ensemble, the Cantores Sancti Marci Choir and the Ivan Goran Kovačić Academic Choir. Its concert programs feature Croatian composers and those who were active in the historical territories of Croatia, including F. (Sponga) Usper, G. Usper, T. Cecchini, V. Jelić, I. Lukačić, G. Puliti, L. Sorkočević, M. Stratico, and I. M. Jarnović. The ensemble is responsible for producing the first permanent recordings of many of these composers’ works on period instruments, using urtext scores free of editorial alterations. The Croatian Baroque Ensemble has received numerous awards, including the Milka Trnina Diploma of the Croatian Association of Music Artists (2001), the Orlando Award of the Dubrovnik Summer Festival (2014), the Ivan Lukačić Award at the Varaždin Baroque Evenings (2016 and 2024), and the City of Zagreb Award (2020).