SAN GIOVANNI BATTISTA
an opera by ALESSANDRO STRADELLA
A Co-production With Washington D.C.’s The IN Series
Listen | Stradella’s San Giovanni Battista performed by Le Banquet Céleste under the direction of Damien Guillon.
TICKET INFORMATION
Tickets go on sale February, 2025.
ARTISTIC & CREATIVE TEAM
Conductor: Neal Goren
Stage director: Timothy Nelson
Set designer: Josh Sticklin
Lighting designer: Yannick Godts
Costume designer: TBD
CAST
San Giovanni Battista: Maximiliano Danta, countertenor
Salome: Raven McMillon, soprano
Herod: Joseph Beutel, bass
Herodias: Christine Lyons, mezzo
Councilor: Patrick Bessenbacher, tenor
UPCOMING DATES
June 11, 12, 13, 2025 | 7:30 PM
85 S Oxford St, Brooklyn, NY 11217
Steps from the Atlantic Avenue subway stop, accessible from the 2, 3, 4, 5, B, D, N, Q, R & W lines near the Brooklyn Academy of Music and many notable restaurants.
LISTEN TO THE MUSIC
THE STORY
San Giovanni Battista (St. John the Baptist) by Alessandro Stradella is the Baroque version of the Salome story, which is perhaps the most profane story in the New Testament. In it, the princess Salome, at the behest of her mother, demands the head of St. John the Baptist in return for services rendered to her stepfather Herod, the King of Judea. (Whether those services were a dance or something more intimate depends on which version of the story you read).
Stradella’s opera was composed in 1675, 230 years before the story was immortalized by Richard Strauss, and 10 years before the birth of Bach, Scarlatti, and Handel. In fact, Handel was so struck by the brilliance of Stradella's score, he purchased a copy for his personal collection. Plus, the role of Salome was the first professional role sung by a young Maria Callas. Though composed as an oratorio, Catapult Opera’s production of San Giovanni Battista will be the American stage premiere of this masterpiece.
THE COMPOSER
Like his compatriot Caravaggio, Stradella’s life was brief yet filled with scandal. He was born in 1639 in the town of Nepi, near Viterbo. At age 14, he became a page to Duke Lante in Rome. Years later, he attempted to embezzle money from the Roman Catholic Church and was forced to flee to Venice where he had a torrid affair with a woman under local royal protection. Once the affair came to light, the lovers fled to Torino where they were tracked down by henchmen hired by his lover’s royal protector. Stradella was publicly beaten to a pulp and left for dead. After a miraculous recovery, he fled to Genova (wisely without his girlfriend) where he led a highly successful professional life thankfully under the radar of the authorities, and his compositions were revered by the church and the nobility.
By all reports, Stradella was viewed as a beloved musical genius and a charming reprobate in Genova, but his charm eventually wore off and his luck ran out in 1682 when he was once again beset upon in public by three bounty hunters hired by a local nobleman (the cause for this attack is officially unknown but is easily surmised), and he was killed instantly by a dagger thrust in his back. If Stradella’s life seems like fodder for an opera plot, you’re not the first to think so, it was indeed the subject of an 1844 opera entitled Alessandro Stradella by German composer Friedrich von Flotow.