These initiatives are aimed at taking a closer look at little-known baroque operas, which are the main subject matter of the courses offered in Gijón. Director Massimiliano Toni and set-designer Deda Cristina Colonna are jointly directing this opera, which has never been performed in Spain and  only once anywhere since its was composed in 1625. It is a work that fits the characteristics of this festival and will be performed on 28 July the Teatro Jovellanos in Gijón.

Courses taught by Antonio Abete, Olivia Centurioni, Eduardo Egüez and Sabina Colonna – voice, violin, lute and viola da gamba - will focus on preparations for this performance. Along with this daring and innovative idea, this year’s Gijón festival also features lute player Paul O’Dette, one of the best performers of the Renaissance repertoire. He will teach a course on Renaissance lute music and give a concert. And as part of the ideal mix of music and education that the festival incorporates, soprano Raquel Anduela will also be on hand, teaching a master-level class on the Spanish baroque vocal repertoire.

She will also appear with Mari Luz Álvarez in a concert by Los Músicos del Buen Retiro, performing the beautiful and little-known Facco opera Las Amazonas de España  at the Teatro Jovellanos. Other important dates on the festival’s calendar are two concerts dedicated to Scarlatti and his Spanish contemporanies, to be performed by two great specialists, Andrés Cea from Seville and Susana García from Asturias, on the new organ of the church of San Pedro in Gijón; sessions by the viola da gamba and tiorba duo Colonna-Egüez; the Valencian baroque orchestra La Dispersione and a music theatre show focusing on the great Italian baroque painter Il Guercino, directed by Massimiliano Toni.

All told, the programming to celebrate this 10th anniversary shows that among music festivals Gijón’s is rich in personality and is strong on national and international projection. Its educational activities will complemented with a seminar on “New techniques for study and analysis of early musical instruments”, which is expected to draw such specialists as John Topham, Joël Dugot (curator of the Museum of Music in Paris) and other Spanish and U.S. experts. As an innovative extra, the seminar will feature two exceptionally appealing early musical instruments: the vihuela, or guitar, of Belchior Dias (circa 1600), and an unsigned Spanish baroque guitar, of a model similar to a guitar with lion intarsias that is on display at the Music Museum of Catalonia. This instrument had been considered one-of-a-kind.