Telemann: Ino

Ino was the wife of Athamas and thus the daughter-in-law of Aeolus, the god of the winds. For reasons that are not entirely clear, she incurred the resentment of Hera, the wife of the gods, who confused Athamas to such an extent that he shot one of his own sons and also wanted to kill the second - whereupon Ino threw herself into the sea with her offspring. In the end, mother and daughter are transformed into maritime deities. When Georg Philipp Telemann set this material to music, he was already well past eighty; musically, however, he exploded like a young man with a bright future ahead of him. The Ino of our new recording comes from the ranks of the Boston Early Music Festival: Amanda Forsythe, most recently celebrated as the irresistible "Serva Padrona", opens an aria recital with this demanding role, which portrays the opera composer Telemann from monodrama to lively comedy and looks ahead to upcoming productions.