Leonardo Vinci’s Artaserse in Chicago: Haymarket Opera Company’s Craig Trompeter on countering the tendency for audiences to only listen to music that they know.

Vinci: Artaserse – Craig Trompeter & orchestra of Haymarket Opera Company (Photo: Elliot Mandel)

As Chicago-based Haymarket Opera Company‘s recording of Leonardo Vinci’s Artaserse is released on Cedille Records, we chat to the company’s founder and musical director Craig Trompeter about rare repertoire and how he wants to counter the tendency for audiences to get lazy and only listen to music that they know.

The last known opera he composed before his death and widely considered to be his masterpiece, Leonardo Vinci’s Artaserse was premiered in Rome in 1730. The opera was the first of over 90 settings of Metastasio’s libretto (other composers who set the libretto include Hasse, Gluck, Graun, Galuppi, JC Bach, and Arne). Vinci and Metastasio are known to have collaborated closely for the world premiere of the opera in Rome. It was celebrated as a classic in its time with multiple revivals into the 1750s. The first modern revival of Artaserse was staged at the Opéra national de Lorraine in Nancy in 2012, and the work was recorded by the same cast with Diego Fasolis conducting Concerto Köln.

The Chicago-based Haymarket Opera Company which specialises in historically informed performance staged Vinci’s Artaserse in June 2025, conducted by Craig Trompeter; the work’s professional premiere in the USA. The cast featured countertenors Kangmin Justin Kim, Key’mon Murrah, and Ryan Belongie, tenor Eric Ferring, mezzo-soprano Emily Fons and male soprano Elijah McCormack.

Subsequently, the company went into the recording studio and their recording of Vinci’s Artaserse is released on Cedille Records in March 2026, a follow-up to the company’s 2022 recording of Joseph Bologne’s L’Amant Anonyme, also on Cedille.

Vinci: Artaserse – Elijah McCormack and Ryan Belongie – Haymarket Opera Company (Photo: Elliot Mandel)

The company chose Artaserse because, in Craig’s words, it is “such a wonderful opera”, but also because there is only one version of it in the catalogues (and that dating from 2012), he felt that it would be a good to have another version disc. Also, Craig thinks that such a classic opera deserves more exposure. It is full of great music, both beautiful and exciting, and shows off the voices so well. The style of music is not well represented in the catalogues.

They gave three performances of its staging in June 2025, cutting the opera slightly to bring the running time in at under four hours. They subsequently recorded it complete bar a few bits of recitative. The performances were directed by Drew Minter who is an expert in Baroque gesture. The result using period costumes and stylised movement was well received with people enjoying the opera. Given its length, members of the company joked about the work being the company’s ‘Ring Cycle’ though in fact the time flew by.

When premiered in Rome in 1730 Artaserse was cast using only men with castratos playing the female roles (Papal decree meant that women were not allowed on stage). Craig explains that Haymarket Opera Company’s intention had been to perform the work with an all-male cast [something that Bayreuth Baroque Opera did in 2022 with Vinci’s Alessandro nell’Indie, also written for Rome in 1730, see my review]. In the event this proved difficult to achieve and the company’s cast features countertenors alongside a female mezzo-soprano and a trans singer. Some of the music sits high for the modern countertenor voice and those 2012 performances transposed some of the music down. Haymarket performed the opera in the original keys though they used 392 Hz which is a tone below modern pitch.

The company is always looking for interesting and unusual repertoire and were lucky to be able to hook the record company into this opera. Artaserse was given a studio recording, in the theatre where they staged the opera, over four to five days after the run of performances. This is something of a luxury in the modern recording world when live recordings are often the norm. Their previous recording, also on Cedille, was of Joseph Bologne’s only surviving opera, L’Amant Anonyme which premiered in Paris in 1780. Craig describes it as almost a play with a lot of dialogue and dance movements. He finds it a really beautiful piece and finds it sad that no other opera of Bologne’s survives.

Vinci: Artaserse – Kangmin Justin Kim and Eric Ferring – Haymarket Opera Company (Photo: Elliot Mandel)

Craig, a viola da gamba player, founded Haymarket Opera Company in 2010 (the company takes its name from Chicago’s Haymarket Affair of 1886 which gave focus to the world-wide labour movement, and from the King’s Theatre in the Haymarket, London where Handel produced his Italian operas). Craig had become frustrated with the way people perform a handful of Baroque works ‘over and over again’. As a gamba player he felt on the fringes of the repertoire anyway and was aware that there was lots of other repertoire out there. He was interested in getting this music performed, and other people were interested. Since forming the company in 2010 they have given some 40 productions, and Craig stands by each opera they have done, all were worth doing. He wants to counter the tendency for audiences to get lazy and only listen to music that they know.

It is always an exciting challenge to bring this music to the stage, particularly for composers who do not get that much air time, but unfortunately, so much interesting material remains in manuscript. He mentions Stradella as one notable composer who wrote some ‘wonderful stuff’. Brian Clarke who runs Prima la Musica has engraved a lot of repertoire for the company and a young American musicologist is doing an edition of Maria Margherita Grimani’s 1715 oratorio La decollazione di San Giovanni Battista which the company performed in 2024.

Several other engravers over the years have done work for the company and Craig describes it as ‘quite a process’ as manuscripts often have errors in them. Rather gratifyingly, some editions made for the company have been used by other companies.

Last summer they made their debut at the Ravinia Festival, the summer home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, with Handel’s Alcina featuring Nicole Cabell in the title role which was well received. At the end of March this year, they are planning the American premiere of Hasse’s serenata La Semele. This uses just three singers for Semele, Jupiter and Juno; Craig will direct Haymarket Opera’s semi-staged performance with Emily Birsan as Semele, Elizabeth DeShong as Giove and Karina Gauvin as Giunone.

Vinci: Artaserse – Haymarket Opera (Photo: Elliot Mandel)

Every year the company gives a fundraising concert described as an early opera cabaret. This year the event is in April and their nearest and dearest singers will be performing music on the theme of Orfeo and Semele. Further ahead the company will be giving the Chicago premiere of Charpentier’s David et Jonathas conducted by Paris-based American conductor and harpsichordist Jory Vinikour. They company performed two short Charpentier operas some years ago, but their last big French Baroque opera was Marin Marais’s Arianne et Bacchus in 2017. In September 2026, the company joins forces with The Newberry Consort for Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo with Zachary Wilder in the title role.

Leonardo Vinci: Artaserse (1730) –  Kangmin Justin Kim, Key’Mon Murrah, Eric Ferring, Emily Fons, Elijah McCormack, Ryan Belongie – Haymarket Opera Company, Craig Trompeter – Cedille Records