Amer­ic­an best-seller writer Donna Le­on in­tro­duces the view­ers to the most beau­ti­ful sites of her ad­op­ted Itali­an city on the foot­steps of great com­posers.

Venice is among the most unique cit­ies in the world. The nu­mer­ous is­lands and bridges, the majest­ic squares, the labyrinth­ine al­leys and the mag­ni­fi­cent palaces along­side the Grand Canal are wit­nesses of a glor­i­ous past.

“La Seren­is­sima” has been in­spir­ing artists through the cen­tur­ies. Not only are the crime nov­els with its lit­er­ary char­ac­ter Com­mis­sario Bru­netti highly suc­cess­ful, but they do also de­scribe the La­goon city in every de­tail; hence in a way Donna Le­on’s books can be seen as “thrill­ing” travel guides. The au­thor is in­deed a charm­ing story-tell­er and a true con­nois­seur of baroque mu­sic.

Gems of this peri­od are per­formed against the his­tor­ic­al back­drop of Venice, prom­ising a true mu­sic­al feast: Joyce DiDonate is ac­com­pan­ied by the en­sembles Il Pomo d’Oro and Il Complesso Ba­rocco play­ing mu­sic by Reyn­aldo Hahn, Ant­o­nio Viv­aldi and Georg Frider­ic Han­del.

Joyce DiDonato, mezzo-sop­rano
Il Pomo d’oro
Dmitry Sinkovsky, vi­ol­in & mu­sic­al dir­ec­tion
Il Complesso Ba­rocco
Alan Curtis, mu­sic­al dir­ec­tion