For the 300th anniversary of the birth of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710-1736), the “Italian Mozart”, whose music is practically unknown today, the Fondazione Pergolesi Spontini, which has been devoting itself to the research and performance of Pergolesi's music for years now, joined forces with UNITEL CLASSICA to record all eight of the master's stage works on video. A landmark project that will provide many impulses for the rediscovery of this composer's epoch-making works.

Altogether four operas and two intermezzi are being recorded under the video direction of Tiziano Macini (who also directed the multiple award-winning recording of Wagner's “Ring” in Valencia). The venue is the Pergolesi Festival held in the composer's home town of Jesi, near Ancona. The majority of the works are performed by the Accademia Bizantina, one of the top ensembles specializing in the historical performance practice of Italian music of the 17th and 18th centuries, and playing on historical instruments. Leading the ensemble is its Musical Director of long standing, the internationally renowned conductor, harpsichordist and organist Ottavio Dantone.

Music lovers familiar solely with Pergolesi's better-known works such as the “Stabat mater” and “La serva padrona” will enjoy these comical and dramatic operas and humorous intermezzi that anticipate the works of Mozart and Rossini. Under the title “Pergolesi – Rediscovered Genius”, Italy’s La Stampa wrote: “Music that’s theater, theater that lives through music – they [the musicians] know that opera’s two halves are inseparable” – words that apply to all of Pergolesi’s stage works presented here!