Poliphilo, the love-sick hero of the opera Wind by Alexander Moosbrugger and Flaka Haliti, and of the novel on which it is based – Francesco Colonna’s Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, published in 1499 – finds himself in a truly utopian world as he dreams: a fantastical garden, bewitching animals, sweetly plashing waters, muses and nymphs — Arcadia! A foretaste will be offered at a concert at the Kunsthaus Bregenz by THE PRESENT, an ensemble led by Hanna Herfurtner, who sings the role of Poliphilo’s beloved Polia in Wind. They will accompany the somnolent hero through his enchanted garden on a quest for undying love, full of longing for golden ages of the past. Along with compositions from the 15th and 16th century by Josquin Desprez, Luca Marenzio, Carlo Gesualdo, Cipriano di Rore and Claudio Monteverdi, we will also hear contemporary music by Wolfgang Heiniger, a world premiere by Sidney Corbett, music by the young award-winning composer Catherine Lamb and by Lucia Ronchetti.
Ronchetti’s piece Blumenstudien from 2013 reinterprets madrigals by Carlo Gesualdo and fashions them into a new work, using texts such as Johann Wolfgang Goethe's elegy The Metamorphosis of Plants.
THE PRESENT
Soprano Hanna Herfurtner, Olivia Stahn
Contralto Amélie Saadia
Tenor Tim Karweick
Bass Felix Schwandtke
Theorbe Lee Santana