Bar La
Barca
2 MADRIGAL COMEDIES
400 Years Apart
Was presented
AT The Music Barge in Brooklyn
july
8 and 10, 2009
Here's what the critics said:
"La Barca di Venezia per Padova," the boat from Venice to Padua...is
lighthearted, even boisterous, but its rich, complex harmonies, as performed by
the Western Wind Vocal Ensemble, sound -- 400 years later -- fresh, adventurous
and totally enchanting."
Howard Kissell, New York Daily News
Click
here for the entire article
Banchieri wrote several books on
Italian dialects, knowledge that inspired the comedic
exchanges among his characters, who engage in raucous
flirtations and drinking songs. The Western Wind singers
linked the vignettes with brief, often amusing
commentary in English...
Jukebox in the Tavern of Love...
by Eric Salzman and a libretto by Valeria Vasilevski...is
a “Canterbury Tales”-like story about an unlikely mix of
characters stranded in a New York bar after a storm and
blackout...The score effectively blends elements of
barbershop-quartet harmonizing, cabaret, Renaissance
sacred music, polyphony, Tin Pan Alley and avant-garde
effects, like those used to imitate the sound of wind in
the opening “Storm.”
Vivien Schweitzer, The New York Times
Click here for the entire article
Bar La
Barca
2 MADRIGAL COMEDIES
400 Years Apart
“Barca di Venetia per Padova” (1605)
by
Adriano Banchieri
&
“JukeBox in the Tavern of Love” (2008)
by Eric
Salzman and Valeria Vasilevski
Click here for the concert program
BAR
LA BARCA is a unique double bill of “madrigal comedies” written 400 years apart
and performed by the Western Wind Vocal Ensemble at Brooklyn’s BARGEMUSIC at
Fulton Ferry Landing on July 8 and 10 at 8 pm.
“Barca” by Adriano Banchieri is one of
the key works of early music theater that preceded opera, a raucous, rollicking
work that takes place on the ferryboat connecting the island republic of Venice
with Padova on the mainland. During the
voyage a motley cast of characters –the boat captain, fishermen, courtesans, a
music master, davening Jews and five singers representing Naples,
Florence, Venice, and Bologna along with a drunken German pass the time by
flirting, drinking and singing songs by their favorite composers. It is all in
the witty, bawdy and elegant spirit of late Renaissance Venice.
“Jukebox”, commissioned as a companion
piece by the Western Wind, takes place in a New York bar during a huge storm and
blackout where six strangers – a bartender, a dancer, a rabbi, a nun, a poet and
a utility worker -- have gathered to seek refuge, each with a story to tell
about life and love. As the lights go out, the bartender lights candles and, in
a manner that is both contemporary New York and yet harks back to the
Renaissance, he evokes singular and touching tales from each of his unexpected
visitors. In the end the lights come back on and the strangers have to depart,
their voices blending just one last time in an evocation of both wine and love,
Eric Salzman, one of the pioneers of the
new music theater, has been working in the field since the 1960s. His “True Last
Words of Dutch Schultz”, also with Vasilevski, was premiered and toured in the
Netherlands and had its New York premiere at Symphony Space’s Wall-to-Wall Opera
in 2007. Salzman has worked in France, Quebec, The Netherlands, Germany,
Austria, Norway and elsewhere. He is Artistic Director of The Center for
Contemporary Opera and his book on “The New Music Theater: Hearing the Body,
Seeing the Voice” – with Thomas Desi, was recently published by Oxford
Univeristy Press. His web site is www.ericsalzman.com. He is currently working
on a program of his Brecht songs and other music for voice, accordion and
violins with singer Laila Salins and accordionist Bill Schimmel.
Valeria Vasilevski’s theatrical roots date
back to her original work with Jerzy Grotowski. She is well-known for her
performance art, dance-theater, music theater and concert theater work. For 20
years she has collaborated with numerous new-music composers, creating new and
original texts and extending the relationship between text and music. Like Mr.
Salzman, she has written for the Yale Theater Review and is collaborating with
him on “The System of the World,” based on 18th century scientific
experiments and the love affair of Voltaire and Mme de Chatelet.
The Western Wind, currently celebrating
its 40th anniversary, embraces a repertory that includes a huge range
of music from Renaissance motets to rock ‘n’ roll, from medieval carols to early
American music to the avant garde. They have been extensively seen and heard on
various media and a complete discography is available on their website
www.westernwind.org. A CD of “Jukebox in the Tavern of Love” will be available
shortly.
Western
Wind Vocal Ensemble
Michele Kennedy, soprano
Laura Christian, soprano
Todd Frizzell, tenor
Richard Slade, tenor
Elliot Z. Levine, baritone
William Zukof, countertenor
Valeria Vasilevski, stage direction/librettist
