Alan Curtis

Alan Curtis was born in Michigan in the United States in 1934. An early advocate of historically informed performances of 17th- and 18th-century music and a pioneer in the revival of neglected Baroque masterpieces, his "reconstruction" of L'incoronazione di Poppea marked the first time in centuries that the work had been performed without modern re-orchestration. The American conductor, harpsichordist, and scholar studied with Gustav Leonhardt in Amsterdam from 1957 to 1959 and after years spent between Berkeley and Europe, he devoted his full time to performance, principally of operas ranging from Monteverdi to Mozart. Curtis made his La Scala debut conducting Handel’s Ariodante in 1980, and in 1982, gave the modern premiere of Jommelli's La schiava liberata with the Netherlands Opera. He conducted Gluck’s Armide in the restored Bibiena theatre in Bologna and again in two further productions, including one with his own period-instrument orchestra at the Châtelet in Paris. He also gave the first modern performance of Handel's Rodrigo, in Innsbruck, Madeira and Lisbon. A noted interpreter of Vivaldi, Curtis gave the modern premiere of Giustino at Palladio's Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza in 1985, with other notable operatic performances through the decade, including Cimarosa's Gli Orazi ed i Curiazi and Handel’s Floridante. In 1992, Curtis founded Il Complesso Barocco, a chamber group of young vocal and instrumental soloists, who specialised in performing the Italian madrigals of composers such as Marenzio, Monteverdi, Gesualdo and d'India, together with vocal and instrumental music from the later Baroque, most notably operas by Handel and Vivaldi. Curtis also conducted Vivaldi's La fida ninfa at the theatre in Verona for which it was composed, the first modern performance of Vivaldi’s Ercole sul Termodonte at the 2006 Spoleto Festival, and the following year at Spoleto, a new production of Handel’s Ariodante. Curtis, whose award-winning discography is extensive, both as harpsichordist and conductor, made his first recording for Archiv Produktion in the 1970s. He has conducted a series of highly acclaimed Baroque opera sets for the Silver Label, including Handel’s Rodelinda, Floridante and Tolomeo, as well as the first recording of Vivaldi’s recently rediscovered and reconstructed Motezuma. Alan Curtis passed away in Florence, Italy in 2015.