|
Back
Music in Time and Space Parma
Teatro Farnese
10/18/2024 - & October 19, 2024
Luigi Nono: La lontananza nostalgica utopica future
Mihaela Costea (violin), Alvise Vidolin (Sound Engineer)
Claudio Monteverdi: Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda
Gádor Lago Benito, Alberto Terribile (Dancers)
Carlo Vistoli (Countertenor, Narrator)
Ghislieri Consort
Fabio Cherstich (Stage Director & Visuals), Philippe Kratz (Choreography & Scenic Movements)
C. Vistoli, G. Lago Benito, A. Terribile (© Teatro Regio di Parma)
Parma’s Verdi Festival had the brilliant idea of showing off venues other than the city’s beautiful Teatro Regio. Though most operas are presented there, some concerts, such as the present one, are given in other venues that particularly delight lovers of music, architecture and history.
Parma is not only a typical mid-size city in Northern Italy, it’s one that’s enjoyed a rich, glorious history. For a long time, it was the fiefdom of the Farnese dynasty, which produced several Popes and cardinals, until its demise in 1766.
Teatro Farnese, where this concert took place, is one of three surviving theatres of the Renaissance (the other two are Vicenza’s Teatro Olimpico and Sabbionetta’s Teatro all’antica. I recently had the privilege of attending Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos in the former.) Inaugurated in 1628, it was destroyed by Allied bombs during WWII. It was rebuilt and reopened in 1962. On infrequent occasions, it features theatre and musical events. It’s a true privilege to attend an event in such a setting.
Considered to be one of Monteverdi’s more experimental works, Il combattinento di Tancredi e Clorinda (1624) is hard to classify; it’s a fascinating hybrid of cantata, opera, ballet, madrigale rappresentativo and declamatory narration. In 1624, it must have been a uniquely exciting avant‑garde musical happening for the Venetian aristocracy that witnessed its inception. Luciano Berio (1925‑2003) himself stated this was paralleled three centuries later in works by playwright Bertolt Brecht and especially Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du soldat (1918). So admiring was Berio of this work by Monteverdi that he concocted his own version of the work for three voices: tenor (the narrator), soprano (Clorinda) and baritone (Tancredi). The coupling of a work by avant‑garde Venetian composer Luigi Nono (1924‑1990) with Monteverdi’s Il combattimento was an intriguing idea.
Based on an episode in Torquato Tasso’s epic poem La Gerusalemme liberate (1581), Monteverdi’s work recounts the story of Tancredi, a Christian crusading knight, and Clorinda, a Muslim girl, who are lovers. They meet in combat, not knowing each other’s identities, as their faces were armoured. Tancredi wounds Clorinda mortally. As she is dying, he uncovers her face. He baptizes her and she sees the gates of Heaven opening as she expires. Different sounds, such as war trumpets, horses, and sword‑to‑sword combat are emulated by various instruments. It features one of the earliest usages of pizzicato, the plucking of strings, to imitate sword sounds.
In the innovative spirit of Monteverdi, this performance fused various art forms into one: poetry, chant, dramatic declamation, dance and chamber music. The Pavia‑based Ghislieri Consort chose to fuse the madrigal’s three characters (Tancredi, Clorinda and the narrator) into one, as a way of incorporating the two lovers into one. Italian countertenor Carlo Vistoli had a splendid voice, sufficiently androgynous to convincingly represent either lover. His sense of declamation, essential for a narrator, was impressive. Despite the archaic seventeenth century text, each word was so well enunciated that its meaning was clear, even for an unversed contemporary audience.
This fusion was paralleled by two male dancers who represented the lovers, as well as the battles between Crusader and Saracen, man and woman, and ultimately between love and death. In a different interpretation, the battle could be an inner struggle of a person with themselves. This was insinuated by Philippe Kratz’s choreography, where the two men often become one.
Inspired by a text Nono had read in a fourteenth century monastery in Toledo, Spain: “Caminantes, no hay caminos, hay que caminar” (Walkers, there are no path, you have to walk), La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura (1988) represents an attempt of the composer’s search to place music in time and space. It involves the violinist moving, according to his own design, between six different spots, and performing a segment of the work at each spot. Obviously, this is an undertaking no less experimental than Monteverdi’s Combattimento.
I cannot claim to be knowledgeable enough of Nono’s music to make a critical assessment, but the setting itself seemed to play an integral part in both his and the Monteverdi work. This concert was a dialogue between two related works by composers living 350 years apart. The juxtaposition of these two works, one contemporary with the Teatro Farnese’s inauguration and the other of our time, was an intriguing idea that attests to music’s diversity and timeless appeal, a noble endeavour indeed.
Ossama el Naggar
|
