^{FIRST PUBLISHED 27 JUN 2026}

Inspired by Vache Baroque’s upcoming production of Francesca Caccini’s La liberazione di Ruggiero at Buxton International Festival, this playlist explores little-known operatic masterpieces by women composers from the Baroque era. We open with Caccini's aforementioned title from 1625, the oldest surviving opera by a woman composer. The playlist then moves through Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre’s Céphale et Procris, the first French opera by a woman, then the remarkable Ercole amante by Antonia Bembo, a Venetian exile at the court of Louis XIV whose opera sat unperformed for over three centuries before recent staged productions in San Francisco (2025) and Paris (2026) and Les Génies ou Les Caracteres d'Amour (1736), by Mademoiselle Duval, whose first name has been lost to history. The second opera by a woman to be staged at the Paris Opéra, it was enjoyed by audiences at Brighton Early Music Festival in 2025. To close, we include tracks from Milanese composer Maria Teresa Agnesi Pinottini’s La Sofonisba (1748), inspired by the tragic historical tale of the Numidian Queen.

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TRACK LIST

Francesca Caccini La Liberazione di Ruggiero dall'isola d'Alcina (1625)
1. Sinfonia - Non perche congiurati
2. Scene 1. Sinfonia - 'Cosi perfida Alcina' – Scene 2. 'Qui si può dire'
3. Scene 2. 'Ruggier de danni asprissimi'
4. Scene 2. 'Lasso, qual vista atroce'

Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre Céphale et Procris (1695)
5. Prologue: Overture
6. Prologue: Loure
7. Act I: 'Chœur d'Athéniens. Célébrones d'un héros la valeur triomphante'
8. Act III: Passacaille

Antonia Bembo Ercole amante (1707)
9. Ouverture
10. Act II: 'Amor ardor più rari'
11. Act IV: 'Ahi che pena è gelosia'

Mademoiselle Duval Les Génies (1736)
12. Prologue: Ouverture
13. Prologue: Air, Chœur. 'Que la terre, le feu, que l'onde, que les airs'
14. Prologue: 'Air pour les plaisirs'
15. Act I: Passacaille
16. Act IV: Chœur. 'Chantons, ne songeons qu'aux plaisirs, profitons de l'âge de grâce'

Maria Teresa Agnesi Pinottini La Sofonisba (1748)
17. 'Dall'eterno felice soggiorno'
18. 'Dubbia ancor'
19. 'La tua sol fra l'alme belle'
20. 'Pensa che in te riposa'