Folger Consort launches its 50th season with the musical equivalent of a gondola tour through 17th-century Venice, where the innovations of the early Baroque got their start in the City of Canals. Venice was already an established center of church music when Claudio Monteverdi was appointed music director at San Marco in 1613. By the time of his death, 30 years later, Venice was a flourishing home for early opera and chamber music. In this program of virtuosic and expressive music, Folger Consort will perform madrigals, motets, sonatas, and operatic excerpts by Monteverdi and his students and admirers, including Rovetta, Cavalli, and Marini.