In 2026, Red Events presents Stabat Mater by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi — a European tour dedicated to one of the most beloved works of the Baroque, performed in sacred spaces across Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
Written in the final weeks of Pergolesi’s short life and premiered only after his death, Stabat Mater remains a work of extraordinary emotional force: a hymn of sorrow, tenderness and celestial beauty. Its music seems to exist between grief and light — intimate, fragile and yet timeless in its radiance.
For this tour, La Chapelle Sauvage gives Pergolesi’s masterpiece a new, intimate staging created for sacred acoustics. Warm, period-informed sound, subtle lighting and carefully chosen churches allow the music to breathe inside each venue, turning every performance into a deeply atmospheric encounter with the work.
The programme presents the complete Stabat Mater for soprano, countertenor and strings, framed by further Baroque selections from La Chapelle Sauvage. Sung in Latin and performed without interval, the evening becomes a continuous seventy-minute journey through devotion, silence and luminous sorrow.
At the centre of the tour are soprano Abigail Barker and countertenor Gleb Zakharov — two young voices bringing rare clarity, sensitivity and emotional depth to Pergolesi’s final masterpiece. They perform alongside La Chapelle Sauvage under the direction of Karel De Wilde, whose historically informed approach gives the music both precision and living warmth.
After performances in remarkable sacred venues including Southwark Cathedral in London, Fraumünster in Zürich, Saint Peter’s Abbey in Ghent, Keizersgrachtkerk in Amsterdam and Lutherse Kerk in The Hague, the tour continues with four more evenings across Belgium and the Netherlands.
