In Venice, music is theatre

Whether it is the grandiose spatial experiments heard at St Mark's Basilica at the beginning of the 17th century, or the earliest venues purpose-built for a new genre, opera... or the 'newfangled' concertos composed by a brilliant composer with an outstanding business acumen (a certain Signor Vivaldi), the music created in the somewhat rough-and-tumble city of Venice of the Baroque era exhibits astonishing vitality! This sense of theatre is not the least factor in the emergence of new genres, starting with the concerto for one or more solo instruments, destined to become one of the dominant genres in the landscape of classical music...