Tenor Aaron Sheehan (center) gets a fitting for the upcoming June 4 North American premiere of Henry Desmarest’s Circé, the centerpiece of this year’s Boston Early Music Festival. Kathy Wittman photograph.
By Keith Powers
What was biennial became olympic.
The international Boston Early Music Festival returns this June, live for the first time since 2019. You-know-what forced the 2021 festival to be entirely virtual—“we kept the momentum going,” says BEMF executive director Kathy Fay—but this year musicians, dancers, costumers, luthiers, publishers and presenters all return to Boston for a saturated week of live early-music performances.
This year’s festival and exhibition will be A Celebration of Women—a theme planned for the 2021 festival, and still brilliantly relevant. The centerpiece opera—Henry Desmarest’s Circé—has soprano Karina Gauvin in the title role, joined by tenor Aaron Sheehan, soprano Teresa Wakim, baritone Jesse Blumberg, soprano Amanda Forsythe and bass-baritone Douglas Williams. Like all the BEMF opera premieres—five of the recordings have been nominated for Grammy Awards—Circé will be staged lavishly, with expert soloists, almost a dozen dancers, period costumes and the esteemed festival orchestra in the pit.
Soprano Karina Gauvin sings the title role in Circé. “No other festival stages a complete opera,” says BEMF executive director Kathy Fay.
The past four years haven’t been a complete loss. Among all music presenters, BEMF has taken live-streaming most to heart. The organization set up virtual access not only for the 2021 festival, but for its dozen-or-so seasonal presentations as well. While live audiences have been slow to return, as would be expected the international audience took full advantage of the virtual accessibility.
“There is no turning back,” Fay says. “We are in a new world, where we promote worldwide in two platforms, in-person and virtual. We are reaching many more people in the world than we did. The business has changed, and the genie can’t be put back in the bottle.”
This year’s festival will have virtual access, but not until September. “We don’t want to compete with ourselves,” Fay says. It will be a test of live audience involvement, which has been healthier this year, but still flags behind pre-pandemic standards.
“We’re not back to what we were,” Fay says. “It’s a different world. There absolutely is still reluctance for live events. Whether it’s early music, or classical music, chamber music or opera, the business has changed.”
The live festival hasn’t changed though—“if anything it’s slightly expanded,” Fay says.
“We are a free-standing nonprofit,” she says. “Everything we do, we do ourselves. Three operas, 17 concerts, panel discussions, symposia, tours, the trade show. We rely on a hundred volunteers—do you know how long it takes just to hire and train a hundred people? We’ve even tossed in a third opera this year.”
Along with the centerpiece production of Circé, which opens June 4 at the Cutler Majestic Theatre, and a reprise of Francesca Caccini’s Alcina June 10 at Jordan Hall, the BEMF young artists training program will also stage a free performance of Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre’s Cephale et Procris at Jordan Hall on June 9.
The festival performance calendar is dotted with familiar early-music names. Les Délices, Vox Luminis, La Donna Musicale, Newberry Consort, Orlando Consort, Tiburtina Ensemble, ACRONYM and Doulce Mémoire join the festival orchestra and others, with enough music to fill anyone’s social calendar. Soprano Dorothee Mields (performing with Hamburger Ratsmusik) highlights six late-night concerts. The trade show takes place June 7–10 at the Courtyard Marriott Inn. Symposia, master classes and discussions run concurrently throughout the week. An organ and keyboard mini-festival takes place June 8 at First Lutheran Church in Boston. Additional events include the popular fringe festival, and a free outdoor concert with Cappella Clausura celebrating the Boston’s Women’s Memorial.
The Newberry Consort performs the vespers of 17th century Mexican composer Juan de Lienas June 7 at Emmanuel Church.
Nothing matches BEMF for sheer breadth—others present extended performance schedules, but not with sumptuously staged opera premieres as well.
“It’s in a league by itself,” Fay says of the festival, which she has directed for more than three decades. “I use the word ‘unique’ a lot each day.
“Boston is a city of the world—people come here from all over the place, in large part because of the amazing cultural institutions. The Boston Early Music Festival is a the top of that list.”