Music Of An Earlier Time

Wait, is it the Monteverdi year? Help. I can’t get on social media without seeing Instagram theorbos, videos of madrigals by fellow early music noobs, or another of review of “Orfeo” pretending it’s a new work. In particular, Sir John Eliot Gardiner (known by some as Jiggy) has made a splash this year by taking a six month tour performing Monteverdi’s complete operas. Well, almost complete: while “Orfeo,” “Ulisse,” and “L’Incorazione di Poppea” exist in their complete forms, all that remains of “Arianna” (1608) is the libretto and a single detached 15-minute fragment, the famous “Lamento.” This year, conductor and scholar Andrew Lawrence King undertook the project to stage a complete performance of “Arianna,” despite the obvious obstacle that it doesn’t actually exist.