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When Francesco Bartolomeo Conti came to Vienna in 1701, aged just twenty, he quickly found employment as a theorbo player in the imperial court chapel. His virtuoso skills with the plucked instruments of the time must have been considerable and would have been enough to secure him a good living. But Conti was also a remarkably creative spirit who, on his death in 1732, left behind an impressive quantity of stage works, some of which were widely performed - not least thanks to their original, imaginative instrumentation and their immense variety of expression, ranging from the drastically comic to filigree, vocal-instrumental dialogues and thus encompassing the whole world of "affects". Led by the soprano and harpist Hana Blazikova and the countertenor Valer Sabadus, flanked by the ensemble nuovo aspetto under the direction of theorbist Michael Ducker, this production presents a small musical anthology whose fascinating content is just 300 years old.