RADAR
THE MUSICAL world loves anniversaries. Concert planners in search of a theme fall gratefully on births and deaths—the BBC Proms, launching its 2017 program on April 20, could hardly survive without them. So the 450th anniversary of the birth of Claudio Monteverdi (below), born in Cremona, Italy, in the spring of 1567, is the perfect excuse for roundthe- clock polyphony.
The composer’s most loyal ambassador, British conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner, is leading the birthday parade. His Monteverdi Choir tours all three of the composer’s surviving operas, Orfeo (1607), Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria (1640) and L’Incoronazione di Poppea (1643) this year. Stops include a high-profile residency in June at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, Monteverdi’s home for 30 years until his death in 1643, and fall performances in Chicago and New York.