EUROPE IMAGES INTERNATIONAL - M5

Synopsis

"Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda" is a seminal work and the quintessence of what Monteverdi's operas were to become. It is a dramatic cantata whose libretto comes from Canto XII of Torquato Tasso's "Jerusalem Delivered", a story of love and war set against the backdrop of the crusades.

In this film, director Ilinca Gheorghiu invites us on a musical journey, together with baritone Nicolas Rivenq, around Venice where the first performance of "Combattimento" took place in 1624.

Keen to increase his knowledge and understanding of the "Combattimento" in order to give the best possible interpretation of the role of Il Testo (the Narrator) at the Teatro Malibran, Nicolas Rivenq pursues his research and shows us a secret side of Venice: its private palaces, archive buildings and libraries, its period drawings, engravings, and paintings.

In the second part of the program, we hear the entire "Combattimento" in the version recorded by Les Arts Florissants, conducted by William Christie for Harmonia Mundi, featuring Nicolas Rivenq as the Testo.



With Nicolas Rivenq, Elena Bertuzzi, Emanuele Lachin and Marco Vincenzi

Conducted by William Christie