A highly dramatic opera which portrays one of the most exciting female figures in world literature with unusually varied colours: “Médée” develops from deceived woman to frightening witch in Marc Antoine Charpentier’s tragic opera. His only tragédie composed for the Académie royale de musique was premiered on 4 December 1693 in Paris. To contemporaries, his fundamentally renewed musical language with great harmonic richness, a developed counterpoint and a colourful use of the orchestra sounded insufficiently like Lully. Now a new benchmark edition invites rediscovery of this work. It will be used for the first time on 19 November 2023 at the Staatsoper Berlin for a staged production conducted by Sir Simon Rattle and directed by Peter Sellars.

As no early manuscript sources of Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas” have survived, modern editions are forced to draw on later copies of the work that vary in a range of respects. Bärenreiter’s new edition opens up a fresh perspective on the opera.

As often happened, a monarch here tried to assert his claim to power with an opera. But Steffani’s “Henrico Leone” is more than just propaganda in sound. A new edition now makes this remarkable work available.

On 10 February 2022 Jules Massenet’s “Thaïs”, a major work of French 19th century opera, will be performed at La Scala, the legendary Italian opera house. Directed by star director Olivier Py, the conductor is Lorenzo Viotti, chief conductor at Dutch National Opera Amsterdam, and one of the most sought-after conductors of the up-and-coming generation. The main roles are luxuriously cast with Mariana Rebeca, Ludovic Tézier and Giovanni Sala. The production benefits from research findings made by the French musicologist  Fabien Guilloux, which are documented in his critical new edition in the series “L‘Opéra français”, and can now be evaluated for practical use for the first time.

It is over seventy years since the publication of the first volume of the Complete Works of Christoph Willibald Gluck. Now the edition, which made many works accessible for the first time, is almost complete. A preliminary assessment.

Jean-Philippe Rameau’s opera Castor et Pollux was an outstanding success, though initially in the reworked version of 1754. The performance material for this work is now available. The volume from the Complete Edition will follow.

The rental material of the renowned music publisher Ut Orpheus Edizioni, founded and based in Bologna in 1993, will now be distributed worldwide by Alkor-Edition, with the exception of Italy. The attractive catalogue, dedicated primarily to early music, includes the complete editions of Francesco Geminiani, Luigi Boccherini (portrait) and Muzio Clementi. Of particular interest is the “Napoli e l‘Europa” series initiated by Riccardo Muti, featuring previously unpublished operas and oratorios of the Neapolitan School, including “I due Figaro” by Saverio Mercadante and “Demofoonte” by Niccoló Jommelli, A real gem is the Dramma per musica “Francesca da Rimini” by Saverio Mercadante (1795–1870), premiered in 2016 at the Festival della Valle d'Itria Martina Franca. It will be performed for the first time beyond the Alps in the current season as a co-production of the Tiroler Festspiele Erl and Oper Frankfurt, in Erl from 28 December 2022, in Frankfurt from 26 February 2023.