Today regarded as one of the most innovative and active Baroque ensembles on the international scene, Cappella Mediterranea has already made several distinguished recordings for the Ricercar label. Leonardo Garcia Alarcon will of course continue his richly diverse collaboration with Ricercar (notably with the Choeur de Chambre de Namur and the Millennium Orchestra), but he will also release several projects on Alpha Classics, starting with an original programme of music by one of his favourite composers, Monteverdi. On the occasion of a music theatre piece centred on Poppea, whom her nurse Arnalta warns against the vices – a production directed by Olivier Lexa and performed at the Doge’s Palace in Venice – Cappella Mediterranea recorded this anthology of arias and madrigals alternating between sins and virtues, performed by the singers who have made the ensemble’s reputation, including Francesca Aspromonte as Poppea, Mariana Flores in Si dolce e’l tormento among others, and the tenor Emiliano Gonzalez-Toro. Here is an opportunity to rediscover the great masterpieces of Monteverdi in a new context: L’incoronazione di Poppea, Il ritorno d’Ulisse, Orfeo, the madrigals, and even an excerpt from the Selva morale.