Combattimenti ! « Le Poème Harmonique

Combattimenti !

With Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, first performed in 1624 in Venice, Monteverdi gave music an important theatrical dimension. With this ‘dramatic cantata’, conveying perfectly through music the conflict between passion and duty and the fulfilment in death of absolute love, Monteverdi established for centuries to come the model of the ‘representative’ genre, the theatre of the human passions. Contrasting with that noble and tragic work, the other piece in this programme, La Fiera di Farfa by Marazzoli, takes the stile rappresentativo towards a fusion of comedy with credible representations of real life. Written as a burlesque intermedio to an opera, with sets by Lorenzo Bernini, it was performed in Rome for the Barberini family in 1639, a year after the publication of Il Combattimento. La Fiera includes an extraordinarily realistic evocation of an Italian fair, with local merchants and mountebanks hawking their wares, folksongs and dances. There is a skilful intermingling of vendors, operatic characters and, for the first time in opera, recognisable commedia dell’arte personalities, and the work culminates with a musical parody of… Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda!

This programme, recorded for Alpha, received excellent press reaction, with ffff – Télérama, ‘Choc’ – Classica, ‘Choc’ – Le Monde de la Musique, 5 – Diapason, German Record Critics’ Award.
First performed in 2009 in Ghent (Belgium), it has also been presented at the Opéra Comique in Paris, Rouen Opéra, the Sablé Festival, and elsewhere.