Il Pomo D'oro

Based in Zurich, but with an international membership and reach, the historical-performance ensemble Il Pomo d'Oro specializes in Baroque opera and instrumental music. It has devoted many concerts and recordings to the immensely important, but still underexplored, repertory from 18th century Naples, the eighth-largest city in the world in 1750. The group is one of the most active on the Baroque music recording scene, releasing several albums annually during the early and mid-2020s. In 2025, the group backed singer Joyce DiDonato, with whom it has frequently worked on her recording of Purcell's Dido & Aeneas on the Erato label. Il Pomo d'Oro takes its name from that of a 1666 opera by Antonio Cesti, a ten-hour work composed for the wedding of Leopold I of Austria and Margarita Teresa of Spain, and calling for 73,000 rocket fireworks and a horse ballet of 300 animals. (The group has not yet re-created that performance, but one can hope.) Il Pomo d'Oro was formed in 2012 with Maxim Emelyanychev as chief conductor, and it quickly amassed an impressive body of recordings and engagements in top operatic and concert venues. Emelyanychev continues to conduct the group frequently in the mid-2020s. The group has made appearances at top concert halls, including the Barbican in London and Carnegie Hall in New York. Its concert schedule in the 2010s was notable for collaborations with two sopranos: Ann Hallenberg in arias connected with the figure of Agrippina, Nero's mother, and mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato. Il Pomo d'Oro released its debut album, the Diapason d'Or-winning Concerti per violino IV (Per L'Imperatore) in 2012 on the Naïve label. Il Pomo d'Oro has worked with El Sistema Greece, a cross-cultural enterprise offering music lessons, along the principles of Venezuela's El Sistema music education structure, in refugee camps in Greece. The group has attracted top-notch instrumental and vocal collaborators such as violinist Riccardo Minasi, in Vivaldi's instrumental music, and in opera, countertenor Max Emanuel Cenčić, with whom it has recorded two albums. Il Pomo d'Oro backed another countertenor, Franco Fagioli, on the 2013 release Arias for Caffarelli, which explored music associated with a little-known, Neapolitan rival of the famed castrato Farinelli and earned a Choc de l'année award in France. The group moved to Erato for a 2015 recording of Handel's Partenope, with Minasi as the conductor, and has remained on Erato for recordings, including a set of Haydn keyboard concertos with Emelyanychev as the harpsichordist and conductor; it also has released more music on Naïve, and in the late 2010s, began an association with the Pentatone label. In 2017, Il Pomo d'Oro backed a Cenčić-led cast in a recording of Handel's Ottone. The ensemble managed three releases during the pandemic year of 2020: a recording of Handel's opera Agrippina starring Fagioli, the Fagioli recital Veni Vidi Vinci, and an album of Bach harpsichord concertos on Pentatone with Francesco Corti. A second volume of those appeared in 2021. The group's recording schedule in the 2020s has been busy indeed, with five albums, operatic and instrumental, released in 2022 alone. In 2023, Il Pomo d'Oro moved forward in time from the Baroque with Mozart: The Symphonies - The Beginning and the End (and even further, with an Apple-only release of Wagner: Wesendonck Lieder with DiDonato), and backward with a recording of Carlo Gesualdo's Sacrae Cantiones. The year 2025 saw at least four new Il Pomo d'Oro releases, including the album Concertos for Baroque Lute and one of Purcell's Dido & Aeneas. ~ James Manheim, Rovi