In eighteenth-century Venice, the festivities never cease: Carnival could last for up to eight months of the year. In the Serenissima, everything becomes mask, metamorphosis and illusion. Sottosopra! – “upside down” — conjures up the topsy-turvy world of Baroque Venice: a city where masks erased hierarchies, where Carnival suspended the rules, and where music became at once mirror and vertigo.

Centred on Ophélie Gaillard’s cello and the voices of countertenor Zoltan Darago and tenor Zachary Wilder, this programme brings together major pages from Vivaldi’s output, but above all a wealth of delightful rarities reflecting a spirit of discovery, effervescence and celebration. The album is completed by a previously unrecorded cantata by Giovanni Finazzi, a castrato and composer who embodies the art of disguise in Baroque Venice.