The life of Christina of Sweden seems straight out of a novel – or rather, an opera.
Born on 18 December 1626 in Stockholm, she ended her days in Rome in 1689, after an exile that led her to meet more and more protagonists in the different acts of her life. A great lover and defender of the arts, her life was marked by the omnipresence of music, of which she was a great patron. This concert traces her life musically in three stages – and a prologue – through works she may have heard or commissioned.
Prologue: the coronation and abdication. The concert opens with a selection of works that may have been performed at her coronation – about which nothing is known musically speaking. The highlight of this moment is Carissimi's Veni Sponsa Christi (of whom Christine was an admirer, and whom she would meet much later). But the joyful prologue comes to an abrupt end with the Fader War, which was sung at her abdication.
Prologue: the coronation and abdication. The concert opens with a selection of works that may have been performed at her coronation – about which nothing is known musically speaking. The highlight of this moment is Carissimi's Veni Sponsa Christi (of whom Christine was an admirer, and whom she would meet much later). But the joyful prologue comes to an abrupt end with the Fader War, which was sung at her abdication.
