New Arts International

- First release on our label by Fabio Bonizzoni, one of Baroque music performance leading conductors of our time
- Bonizzoni and his group La Risonanza start a hopefully long journey with us, releasing Dido and Aeneas by Henry Purcell, an operatic masterpiece dated 1689
- In the next future Fabio will release more choral and orchestral great repertoire works on Challenge Classics

The charm of this opera is in that it contains everything, like Cervantes’ Don Quixote: any life experience is within it. Love, hate, death, dream, despair, the innocent and the wicked play. Purcell’s awareness in portraying such opposite feelings is amazing as well as the room that he leaves to the conductor. So, here is why a new “Dido”: as an artist in love with this opera, Fabio Bonizzoni wants to deliver his reading. He wants to translate Purcell’s “sign” his own way, how much this opera is alive, lively, modern, contemporary. How Purcell’s genius was able to convey Dido’s despair and Aeneas’ cowardice and how much Purcell himself had fun in depicting the plot. Fabio Bonizzoni, one of the leading Italian harpsichordists and organists of his generation, graduated in organ, organ composition and harpsichord at the Royal Conservatorium in The Hague in Ton Koopman’s class. He frequently enjoys commitments as guest conductor: in recent times he has be