Sacred and Profane: Monteverdi and Rossi
Monteverdi | Tempro la cetra, SV117
Monteverdi | Se pur destina, SV142
Monteverdi | Lamento della ninfa, SV163
Monteverdi | Volgendo il ciel, SV 154
Luigi Rossi | Oratorio per la Settimana Santa
Early Opera Company
Robert Howarth | guest director
Claire Booth | soprano
Augusta Hebbert | soprano
Esther Brazil | mezzo-soprano
Samuel Boden | tenor
Nick Pritchard | tenor
Jonathan McGovern | baritone
Simon Robinson | bass-baritone
Following on from the extraordinary 5-star production of Rossi’s Orpheus at Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, we delve into the vividly emotive music of his devotional oratorio, a powerful depiction of the story of Holy Week. Alongside this masterpiece are excerpts from Monteverdi’s Books of madrigals, stirring and dramatic works that heralded the beginning of a new operatic age.
Tickets now on sale via www.spitalfieldsmusic.org.uk or by calling their box office on 020 7377 1362.
Luigi Rossi’s vivid and emotive music is in the ascendancy once again 400 years after it was written. His extraordinary Oratorio weaves arias, instrumental interludes and an important role for the choir as it depicts the story of Holy Week. Powerfully constructed, it combines a biblical story and devotional characters with theatrical additions of demons and virgins. His music reflects the sumptuous art of the period, with fluidity, dramatic corners and a taste for spectacular effects. Choral declamatory moments, keening laments and instrumental dissonances form a powerfully striking whole with the exotic sounds of theorbo, harp and lirone in the EOC Orchestra, and a dream-team of singers.
Monteverdi was an experimental musician of his day and his Seventh Book of Madrigals formed the beginnings of a new operatic age, with music which gloriously intertwines and settles sensuously together. Book 8 explores the twin themes of Love and War, with an extraordinary emotional scope befitting Monteverdi’s theatrical instincts. Stirring and dramatic, Christ Church will resound with these rich masterpieces of expressive music.
We’re delighted to be back in the glorious setting of Christ Church Spitalfields to help celebrate Spitalfields Music’s 40th anniversary. Previous appearances for Spitalfields Music include as Associate Artists in 2013, with Handel’s ‘Susanna’ at Christ Church, JS Bach’s ‘Coffee Cantata’ in a Hoxton art gallery, Monteverdi dances with East London Dance at Village Underground and as well as one of the first incarnations of Musical Rumpus. Other memorable concerts have included working with Women Sing East on Vivaldi ‘Gloria’ and In Conversation concerts in Spitalfields houses with Anna Stéphany, Mhairi Lawson and Iestyn Davies.
