Love and Betrayal

About

Love and Betrayal is a curated Baroque program exploring the extremes of human emotion through 18th-century music. Under the direction of Music Director Elisa Citterio, the Toronto-based Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra presents instrumental and vocal works by Handel, Vivaldi, and Locatelli. The concept focuses on the Baroque ideal of passionate affect, ranging from introspective sorrow to dazzling brilliance. Citterio’s Italian perspective shapes the program’s color and rhetoric, with Canadian soprano Karina Gauvin bringing dramatic intensity and lyrical poise. The balance of orchestral virtuosity and operatic expression frames a narrative of love set against treachery and loss. Locatelli’s Il Pianto d’Arianna, a violin concerto evoking Ariadne’s lament, provides a central emotional axis for the evening.