Of
Reinhard J Brembeck
The old sorcerer René Jacobs, who just turned 76, has now discovered Antonio Vivaldi. Everyone knows him, his seasonal concerts are world famous, but his 22 surviving operas only slowly trickle onto the opera stage. René Jacobs is a gentleman with a friendly smile, who sedately floats down into the orchestra pit of the Berlin Lindenoper, and then with small and ever-same gestures, the right hand always moves in the same way as the left, awakens the most diverse sound wonders in Vivaldi’s “Giustino”. Where everyone thinks of Vivaldi as groovy and impetuous, Jacobs relies on melancholy, fragility, elegance, morbidezza. This amazes at first, enchants increasingly and finally the audience stands in the hall and cheers René Jacobs and his eight singers who are wonderfully devoted to him and Vivaldi.