Betrayal: A polyphonic

crime drama
Weds13–Fri 15 May 2015,
Village Underground

Conceived and directed by

John La Bouchardière
I Fagiolini
Robert Hollingworth music director
John La Bouchardière director

Part of Barbican Presents 2014–15

Programme produced by Harriet Smith;

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 Betrayal: a polyphonic crime drama
world premiere
Conceived and directed by John La Bouchardière
Music by Carlo Gesualdo
Choreography by the company

I Fagiolini
Robert Hollingworth music director

Kirsty Hopkins soprano & Simon Palmer dancer

Ciara Hendrick mezzo-soprano & /Lukasz Przytarski dancer
Martha McLorinan mezzo-soprano & Luke Murphy dancer
Matthew Long tenor & Merry Holden dancer
Greg Skidmore baritone & Eleesha Drennan dancer
Jimmy Holliday bass & Rebecca Rosier dancer

Rosana Ribeiro assistant director

Giles Thomas sound designer
Costumes by Nefeli Sidiropoulou & Ksenia Vashchenko for The Cutline Collective
Ali Wade stage manager
Alice Johnston assistant stage manager
Barbara Wojtczak intern assistant director
Rebekah Jones, Nico Migliorati, Elspeth Piggott, Rosana Ribeiro, Ben Rowarth covers
Kate Gedge PR
Percius & Kate Wyatt project management

Commissioned by the Barbican

Produced by I Fagiolini and Percius in association with the Barbican
Supported by Arts Council England, I Fagiolini Charitable Trust, Alpha CRC Ltd, Cocheme Trust, Leche
Trust, Steve Brosnan, Linda Hill and Nicholas Ward-Jackson
Thanks to Matt Brodie, Greg Browning, Kieran Cooper, Chris Davey, English National Opera,
Gérard Ingold, Professor Martin Kemp, Hannah Marsden, Pano Masti, Dr Ruth McAllister, Peter Nash,
Polyphonic Films Ltd, Melissa Scott, Sirena Simon, Toby Smith and James Weeks.
For further background information on Gesualdo’s history, his music and on this project in general,
visit: www.ifagiolini.com/betrayal

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2

Notes on a polyphonic crime drama
by John La Bouchardière
When I first suggested this project to Robert
Hollingworth, my working title was Guilt,
following the commonly held assumption that
Gesualdo wrote weird music because he was
tortured by remorse after having killed his first
wife. However, although there is evidence to
suggest that Gesualdo was greatly concerned
for his immortal soul, there is little to show that
an excess of guilt was the sole reason behind his
agonising harmonies.
As Robert reminded me, Gesualdo was
inspired by other composers’ adventurous
experimentation; he was also a Mannerist,
in the sense of an artist following a fashion
that deliberately flouted the rules of classical
tradition, which makes his music all the stranger
to a modern listener. But Gesualdo took
everything to extremes – in his obsessively dark
choices of texts, non-naturalistic word setting
and the way he pushes the rules of harmony
to the very brink. In some respects, he was not
dissimilar to the composers stretching tonality
to breaking point 300 years later: combined
with his apparently bleak view of existence, his
radical Mannerism verges on Expressionism,
and his fame as a tortured genius/outcast might
understandably have appealed to fin de siècle
pessimists and the early existentialists.
As it was, interest in Gesualdo was revived by
composers in the 20th century who were trying
to figure out what to do without resorting to
serialism. Chief among these were Stravinsky,
who went on to compose adaptations of
Gesualdo’s madrigals (then choreographed
by Balanchine), and Peter Warlock, who
championed his work. Most of the others,
however, paid homage by writing music inspired
by the events of Gesualdo’s life rather than his
scores.
Given that Gesualdo’s music is so painfully
expressive, I thought it made sense to use his
Introduction
own work as the basis for a dramatisation,
since this might help audiences to understand
his music better, as well as offering insight into
his troublesome life. In particular, I hoped that
finding dramatic motivation for his more peculiar
writing and harmonic shifts might make these feel
more logical and more easily engaging.
Thanks to recent enlightening research by
forensic psychiatrist Dr Ruth McAllister, we now
have a rather better grasp of Gesualdo as a
person. It seems probably that he had some sort
of personality disorder arising from early-life
trauma, and that everything else in his life (from
brutally killing and beating women to insecurity
and narcissism) was partly a consequence of
that flaw. It seems to me that Gesualdo’s music
must also, to some extent, be a response to
his psychiatric problems (as Dr McAllister also
proposes), and that his unsettled harmonies,
extreme musical gestures and fixation on angst-
ridden texts were also products of his state of
mind. Are not all our deliberate acts – artistic or
otherwise – products of our thoughts?
If Gesualdo’s musical and textual choices
were on some level expressions of his warped
perspective and damaged mental state, then
they might also offer insights into his thought
processes – the same processes that made
him the man he was in other ways. His work,
therefore, might enable us to look into the mind
of someone who thinks differently from us, who
does things we consider objectionable. And if
his polyphony allows us that insight, then treating
individual strands of its counterpoint as separate
dramatic paths might also permit us to hear
the voices of others whose deeds have crossed
the line. After all, are we and our acts not also
consequences of what made us? And perhaps
those who fail to control their extreme actions
according to social mores do so not because they
feel guilt but betrayal.
3
 The case of Carlo Gesualdo
by Dr Ruth McAllister, forensic psychiatrist
Gesualdo, surprising his wife and her lover
in flagrante, killed them both. It sounds like a
crime of passion, easy to imagine: the shocking
discovery, fury, loss of control and tragic
consequences; but the details of the event tell
a different story. Amazingly, two first-hand
accounts have survived. Of course, you can’t
carry out a psychiatric assessment of someone
you’ve never met. But you can look at the
evidence with a psychiatrically informed eye.
Background
As the second son in a noble family, Gesualdo
was probably destined for a career in the
Church. In his youth, he immersed himself in
music: but when he was 18, his brother died
and Gesualdo became the heir. This meant
he would have to marry. And so it was that in
1586 he married Maria d’Avalos, a renowned
beauty who had been married twice before and
had two children. So Gesualdo, who ‘cared for
nothing but music’, was matched with a beautiful
and sexually experienced woman. Maria had
an affair with the Duke of Andria, a ‘handsome
and accomplished nobleman’, who was himself
married with four children.
The events of 16 October 1590
Maria went to bed at the usual time, then the
Duke of Andria joined her. Meanwhile, Gesualdo
had dined in his room and retired to bed. Later,
he called for a glass of water and got dressed.
He pulled weapons from under his bed and ran
to the staircase, declaring: ‘I am going to slay
the Duke of Andria and that strumpet Donna
Maria’. Three heavily armed men from the estate
went upstairs with him. They threw open Maria’s
door: Gesualdo shouted the order to kill and
shots were fired in the bedroom. The men came
out, followed by Gesualdo, whose hands were
covered in blood. Gesualdo then went straight
back in to the bedroom, saying ‘I do not believe
they are dead’. He went up to Maria’s bed and
‘dealt her still more wounds’ before leaving.
Next day the local magistrate examined the
scene. The Duke of Andria had been shot in the
chest and head and stabbed in the chest, arms,
4
head and face. Maria’s throat was cut and her
nightshirt was ‘all bathed with blood’. She also
had multiple stab wounds in the upper body,
head and face. The lock on the bedroom door
had been altered so that it could not be secured.
There were blood-stained weapons and used
torches in Gesualdo’s room. The evidence of
Maria’s adultery was plain and no attempt had
been made to conceal who did the killing.
Comments
Gesualdo did not act on impulse or in the grip of
strong emotion. He planned to surprise the lovers
in front of witnesses at their most vulnerable and
guilty. He used far more force than he needed
to kill them, then he went back and mutilated
Maria’s body.
These features suggest that an earlier trauma
was being re-enacted, which was not just a loss
but a rejection and a betrayal. In his mind the
person betraying him was hugely powerful – not
a naked and defenceless woman but a monster
who needed a troop of men, armed to the
teeth, to subdue her. This suggests that he felt
powerless in the face of the betrayal. Ultimately,
though, his feelings could not be resolved – even
after killing his wife, he immediately had to go
back and kill her again.
Some would say there were sadistic elements in
the killings, that he needed to humiliate his victims
and have them in his power. He constructed the
offence to secure evidence of Maria’s adultery
and so escape punishment; but the excessive
violence and the mutilation of his wife’s body
suggest that a psychological need was driving his
actions as well.
There are further clues to Gesualdo’s personality
in the accounts of people who knew him. He
was a difficult companion: travel arrangements
often had to be postponed, as Gesualdo lay
in bed until ‘extremely late’. He was, at first,
unprepossessing. He talked ‘a great deal’
and held forth about hunting and music at
extraordinary length, declaring himself an
authority on both. He mentioned feelings of
rivalry with other composers, poking fun at most
of them. Gesualdo could also be remarkably
rude: on one occasion, when he dined with a
patriarch of the church in Venice, the singing at
dinner was bad. Gesualdo took it on himself to
summon the musicians and give them a ticking-
off. There are accounts of his forcing people
to listen to him talking about or playing music
for hours on end.He sounds like someone who
dominates other people with his agenda. He
lacks regard for their time and is not interested
in what they might like to talk about, instead
needing to impress people and obtain their
admiration, which suggests low self-esteem.
When Gesualdo married his second wife,
Leonora, he based himself at Ferrara for two
years, but spent months at a time travelling
without her. When he left for his estates he wrote
insistently for her to follow him but when she
arrived, he treated her badly, beating her and
humiliating her through his affairs with two other
women. Her brother described in a letter how
Gesualdo ridiculed her, sometimes grabbing her
and flinging her to the ground, not to mention
flaunting his mistress in front of her. It was said
that ‘When the Princess was away he would
die of passion to see her, and then when she
returned he would not pay much attention to her’.
All this suggests a failure of attachment:
Gesualdo loved the idea of his wife but violently
rejected her when she was near. This pattern can
be seen in people who have been traumatised
in infancy, especially if they can’t form a secure
attachment to a primary carer. It tends to be
repeated in all their intimate relationships.
Gesualdo’s extramarital affairs were apparently
no more successful. A former mistress of his was
tried for witchcraft against him. Under torture,
she ‘confessed’ to using sorcery by giving him a
love potion of her menstrual blood to drink. The
significance of this is that Gesualdo felt under
attack. He may have been paranoid, but belief
in witches was at this time still common. Both his with his God, through his music. The fact that the
Cardinal uncles were enthusiastic witch-hunters
and supporters of the Inquisition.
He also felt under attack professionally, believing undoubted suffering to creative use.
that other composers were stealing his ideas
and passing them off as their own: as Gesualdo
expert Glenn Watkins says, ‘the composer’s ego Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa, Musician and
is revealed as conspicuously fragile’.
Gesualdo’s chronic illness meant that ‘he found
it soothing to be beaten about the body and
temples with a small bundle of rags’. This was
Programme notes
not necessarily masochistic – it could have been
medicinal, as flagellation was thought to be a
cure for intestinal obstruction at the time. He
could not sleep without a servant who hugged
his back to keep him warm. I don’t know whether
this argues ambivalent sexuality or just an
overwhelming anxiety and a need for masculine
protection. He also developed a morbid
obsession with his uncle, now a saint, and tried to
get relics to relieve his illnesses.
The picture that emerges is of a man with an
insecure sense of himself who is prone to feeling
betrayed – by his first wife; his ex-lovers, whom
he accuses of witchcraft; and his colleagues,
whom he accuses of plagiarism.
The same psychic structure generated his music,
which is full of irreconcilable opposites, with
an emphasis on tension and conflict. He was
attracted to poetry that eroticises pain and loss.
His madrigals sing of a perverse form of love,
in which the lover is more highly valued because
she is cruel, rejecting and sadistic. Of course
these themes were popular at the time, but
Gesualdo set them with an unrelieved intensity.
As with the murder of his wife, there was no
resolution.
The Tenebrae Responsories have often been seen
as a reflection of Gesualdo’s guilt and remorse.
I think it’s likely that his music served an important
psychological function for him. It allowed him to
excel and excite admiration but also to express
intolerable tensions. In the madrigals, he could
go on torturing his wife and being tortured
by her in his own mind. In the sacred music,
especially the Responsories, he could dwell on his
abiding feelings of rejection, betrayal, bitterness
and suffering.
Gesualdo seems to have had no successful
relationships in his life but he does have a
relationship with an audience, and possibly also
music can still touch us shows that there is more
to it than technical mastery. He invests it with the
intensity of his personal experience and puts his
Further reading and sources:
Murderer by Cecil Gray and Philip Heseltine (1926)
Gesualdo, the Man and His Music by Glenn Watkins
(1973, 2nd edition 1991)
The Gesualdo Hex by Glenn Watkins (2010)
5
 About the composer
by Robert Hollingworth
More than 400 years after it was written,
Gesualdo’s later music still surprises and shocks
– both a listening audience but also singers who,
otherwise quite proficient in music of this period,
find that normal rules – expected harmonic
progressions and melodic formulae – only partly
apply. Such advanced harmony and wildly
gestural and often both unsettled and unsettling
composition was not to be heard all over Italy at
the time. Venice, for example, was particularly
harmonically conservative, the Gabrielis
modernising through contrast (one group of
musicians in dialogue with another). In Florence,
a focus on clarity of textual expression and
‘recreating’ Greek ideas lead to a new simplicity
of a single voice with simple accompaniment
(and so to opera). But in Ferrara, where
Gesualdo came in the 1590s (while Monteverdi
was writing his great a cappella madrigals down
the road in Mantua), harmonic experimentation
and the search for the perfect expressive
ensemble madrigal was all the rage.
Gesualdo went to Ferrara to remarry but also
because of the musical reputation of the court
and its maestro, Luzzasco Luzzaschi. The court
had a history of employing top composers:
Josquin, Obrecht, Brumel and Willaert had
worked there earlier in the century. It was the
lesser-known Neapolitan musician Vicentino,
though, who was present there in the 1550s
and who fostered an interest in chromaticism
(using notes outside the normal mode or key).
He also invented a keyboard instrument with
extra keys to allow differentiation between
notes represented on a modern keyboard
by one key (such as C sharp and D flat) but
which are actually different notes if tuned
to acoustically pure intervals. It didn’t catch
on – and those learning their Grade 8 scales
may be glad of this – but the understanding of
6
how to tune pure intervals, especially in a solo-
voice ensemble, is a crucial part of unlocking
the colour (or chroma) in Gesualdo’s music.
Gesualdo’s music changed when he arrived
in Ferrara. Everything became more extreme
– more condensed, harmonically more daring
and more gestural in a milieu where pushing
boundaries and creating the most daring
and risqué miniature was the prize. There
is very little relief in his later settings, unlike
those of his contemporaries. There are certain
patterns to many of the madrigals: slow-
moving dissonance or chromaticism followed
by busy, fast counterpoint. The chromatic
shifts, despite exploring keys not otherwise
seen in Renaissance music (C sharp major, for
example) are nearly always perfectly logical
with a pivot note connecting any two chords.
Occasionally, though, there is no pivot and the
following chord is particularly hard to find.
Rehearsing these pieces, one is struck by the
extremely fine craftsmanship involved, but their
realisation is like modelling Escher drawings,
impossibilities seemingly held together in
physical space for a moment until your eye/ear
looks elsewhere and they dissolve. The tuning
challenges they present might lead one to an
equal temperament approach to make the
chromatic shifts easier: yet only by aiming for
pure acoustic intervals (called ‘just intonation’)
at every step does the sheer brilliance of the
chromaticism, the colour, come into focus. This
requires a mental virtuosity quite apart from
the vocal virtuosity that the pieces sometimes
require and I’d like express my admiration
to the singers for dealing with this highly
specialised mental process while John gave
them other very distracting things to do.
 Texts
Carlo Gesualdo (1566–1613)

Hei mihi! Domine, quia peccavi nimis in vita mea. Woe is me, O Lord, for I have sinned too much in
my life!
Quid faciam miser? What shall I do, wretch that I am?

Ubi fugiam, nisi ad te Domine Deus meus? Whither flee but to you, my God?
Miserere mei dum veneris in novissimo die. Have mercy on me when you come on the last day.

(from Cantiones sacrae, Book 1)

Dolce spirto d’amore Love’s sweet spirit

in un sospir accolto. captured in a sigh,
Mentre io miro il bel volto, while I gaze on her fair face
spira vita al mio core. it breathes life into my heart.

Tal acquista valore Thus it takes courage

da quella bella bocca, from that lovely mouth
che sospirando tocca. which with a sigh it touches.

(from Madrigali, Book 3)

Dolcissimo sospiro Sweetest of sighs,

che esci da quella bocca breathed from that mouth
ove d’Amor ogni dolcezza fiocca, upon which Love showers every sweetness,
deh, vieni a raddolcire ah, come and sweeten
l’amaro mio dolore: the bitterness of my pain:
ecco ch’io t’apro il core. behold, I open my heart to you.

Ma, folle, a chi ridico il mio martire? Yet, fool that I am, to whom do I speak of my
torment?
Ad un sospir errante To an errant sigh
che forse vola in seno ad altro amante? that perhaps flies to the breast of another lover?

(from Madrigali, Book 3)

S’io non miro, non moro, If I look not, I die not;

Non mirando, non vivo; not seeing, I do not live;
Pur morto io son yet dead I am,
Né son di vita privo. even though I am not deprived of life.

O miracol d’amore, Oh miracle of love;

Ahi, strana sorte, alas, strange fate,
Che’l viver non fia vita, that living should not result in life,
E’l morir morte. nor dying in death.

(from Madrigali, Book 5; by Annibale Pocaterra)

Tu m’uccidi, o crudele, You are killing me, cruel one,

D’Amor empia homicida, wicked murderer of love,
E vuoi ch’io taccia e’l mio morir non grida? and you expect me to remain silent and not to cry
out that I am dying?
7
 Ahi, non si può tacer l’aspro martire
Che va innanzi al morire,
Ond’io ne vo gridando:
‘Oimè, ch’io moro amando!’
(from Madrigali, Book 5)
Asciugate i begli occhi,
Deh, cor mio, non piangete
Se lontano da voi gir mi vedete!
Ahi, che pianger debb’io misero e solo,
Ché partendo da voi m’uccide il duolo.
(from Madrigali, Book 5)
Laboravi in gemitu meo,
lavabo per singulas noctes lectum meum,
lacrimis meis stratum meum rigabo.
(from Cantiones sacrae, Book 1)
Ecco, morirò dunque!
Nè fia che pur rimire
Tu ch’ancidi mirando
Il mio morire.
Ahi, già mi discoloro,
Oimè vien meno
La luce a gli occhi miei,
La voce, al seno!
O che morte gradita
Se almen potessi dir:
‘Moro, mia vita!’
(from Madrigali, Book 6)
‘Mercè!’ grido piangendo
Ma chi m’ascolta? Ahi lasso! io vengo meno.
Morrò dunque tacendo.
Deh, per pietade, almeno,
o del mio cor tesoro,
potessi dirti, pria ch’io mora: ‘Io moro’.
(from Madrigali, Book 5)
8
No, it is impossible to say nothing of the cruel
torment
which comes before death
and which compels me to cry out:
‘Alas, that I die loving.’
Dry those lovely eyes,
ah, my beloved, do not weep
if, far from you, you see me wandering.
Alas, that I must weep alone and in misery,
because as I part from you, I die of grief.
I am weary with my groaning.
Through every night I will wash my bed;
I will water my couch with tears.
Behold, I shall die indeed!
May you not look again,
you who kill with your eyes,
upon my death.
Ah, I am growing pale already.
Alas, the light
in my eyes is fading,
as is my voice in my chest.
Oh, how welcome death would be
were I only able to say:
‘My life, I’m dying.’
‘Mercy!’ I cry, weeping.
But who hears me? Alas, I faint.
I shall die, therefore, in silence.
Ah, for pity! At least,
oh treasure of my heart,
let me tell you before I die, ‘I die!’
O dolorosa gioia,
O soave dolore,
Per cui quest’alma è mesta e lieta more!
O miei cari sospiri,
Miei graditi martiri,
Del vostro duol non mi lasciate privo
Poiché sì dolce mi fa morto e vivo.
(from Madrigali, Book 5)
Dolcissima mia vita,
a che tardate la bramata aita?
Credete forse che’l bel foco ond’ ardo,
sia per finir perche torcete il guardo?
Ahi, non fia mai che brama il mio desire
o d’amarti o morire.
(from Madrigali, Book 5)
Itene, o miei sospiri
Precipitate il volo a lei
Che m’è cagion d’aspri martiri.
Ditele per pietà
Del mio gran duolo
Ch’or mai ella mi sia
Come bella, ancor pia
Che l’amaro mio pianto
Cangerò lieto in amoroso canto.
(from Madrigali, Book 5)
Moro, lasso, al mio duolo,
E chi può dar mi vita,
Ahi, che m’ancide e non vuol darmi aita!
O dolorosa sorte,
Chi dar vita mi può,
Ahi, mi dà morte!
(from Madrigali, Book 6)
Aestimatus sum cum descendentibus in lacum,
factus sum sicut homo sine adjutorio, inter
mortuos liber.
Posuerunt me in lacu inferiori,
in tenebrosis et in umbra mortis.
(from Tenebrae responses for Holy Saturday)
Oh sad joy,
Texts
Oh sweet suffering,
which makes this spirit sad, yet die happy!
Oh my beloved sighs,
my welcome torment;
do not deprive me of the pain you give me;
for so sweetly it makes me feel both dead and
alive.
My sweetest life,
why do you delay the succour I long for?
Perhaps you believe that the beautiful fire that
burns me
will end because you turn away your glance.
Alas, this can never be, because my desire longs
to love you or die.
Go, my sighs,
wing you way to her
who is the cause of my bitter torments.
Tell her, in pity
of my great suffering,
finally to be merciful
as she is already beautiful,
so that my bitter lament
will happily change into a love song.
I die, alas, in my suffering
and she who could give me life,
alas, kills me and will not help me.
O sorrowful fate,
she who could give me life,
alas, gives me death.
I am counted with them that go down into the
abyss.
I am made as a man without help: free among
the dead.
They have laid me in the lower pit,
in dark places, and in the shadow of death.
9
 O vos omnes, qui transitis per viam,
attendite, et videte
Si est dolor sicut dolor meus.
(from Cantiones sacrae, Book 1)
Languisce al fin chi da la vita parte
E di morte il dolore
L’affligge sì che in crude pene more.
Ahi, che quello son io,
Dolcissimo cor mio,
Che da voi parto e per mia crudel sorte
La vita lascio e me ne vado a morte.
(from Madrigali, Book 5)
Tribulationem et dolorem inveni et nomen
Domini invocavi:
‘O Domine libera animam meam;’ misercors
Dominus et justus
et Deus noster miseretur.
(from Cantiones sacrae, Book 1)
10
O all ye who pass this way,
attend and see
if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow.
He who is slipping away from life languishes
towards his end,
and the suffering of death
so afflicts him that he dies in cruel pains.
Alas, that person is me,
my sweetest love:
it is I who am leaving you, and my cruel fate is
such
that I must part from life and die.
I fell into distress and sorrow, and I called upon
the name of the Lord,
‘O Lord, save my soul!’ Gracious is the Lord
and just;
our God is merciful.
 About the performers
About the
performers

John La Bouchardière Robert Hollingworth

John La Bouchardière director Robert Hollingworth music director

John La Bouchardière was a chorister at Robert Hollingworth founded I Fagiolini in 1986.

Magdalen College, Oxford, studied at the He has directed the BBC Singers, Accentus,
University of Birmingham, and was a staff North German Radio Choir, the Netherlands
director at English National Opera. He has Chamber Choir, Wrocl/aw Philharmonic Choir,
directed opera across the UK, Europe and the Wuppertal Symphony Orchestra, The English
USA. Concert and the Academy of Ancient Music. He
has also written and presented programmes
Best known for The Full Monteverdi (I Fagiolini), for BBC Radio 3 where he learnt you can say
he is now somewhat notorious for blindfolding ‘orgasm’ in a musicological context but not
audiences in his experiential reimagining of Lera ‘Damn these Italians’. He has worked on a
Auerbach’s The Blind (Lincoln Center Festival and number of films including Quills, in which he
Trondheim Festival). Other recent productions failed to make Joaquin Phoenix look like a
include Semele and Idomeneo (Florentine conductor.
Opera, Milwaukee); Cavalli’s Giasone (Royal
Academy of Music); John Adams’s El Niño In 2012, he enjoyed learning about pop
(Spoleto Festival, USA). His film version of The production (with 17th-century instruments) on
Full Monteverdi was released on cinema and the album Shakespeare: The Sonnets. He now
television screens worldwide, as well as on DVD. divides his time between I Fagiolini and teaching
He also directed Music Room, an eight-part music at University of York where he also runs the
television series for Sky Arts, which has been new MA in solo-voice-ensemble singing.
broadcast internationally.
11

Eleesha Drennan
Eleesha Drennan dancer
Eleesha Drennan is a multi-award-winning
choreographer and dancer based in London.
She completed her training at the Northern
School of Contemporary Dance and McMahon
School of Ballet. She was an integral member of
National Dance Company Wales from 2004 to
2013 and became House Choreographer in 2011.
She was awarded first prize for her performance
of Whiskers at the 2012 International Solo Dance
Theatre Festival in Stuttgart, which led to an
international tour. She is a recipient of the Sky
Academy Arts Scholarship for the creation of
Channel Rose.
Eleesha Drennan has worked with a range of
choreographers, including Ohad Naharin,
Christopher Bruce, Itzik Galili, Nigel Charnock,
Stephen Petronio, Stephen Shopshire, Angelin
Preljocaj, Andonis Foniadakis and Stijn Celis.
Ciara Hendrick
Ciara Hendrick mezzo-soprano
Ciara Hendrick studied at the Guildhall School
of Music & Drama and Strasbourg Opera
Studio. Recent engagements include Fortuna/
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Valetto (L’incoronazione di Poppea) for Opera
North, conducted by Laurence Cummings;
Tweedledum (Will Todd’s Alice in Wonderland)
for Opera Holland Park; and the title-role in
Handel’s Susanna for the Early Opera Company,
conducted by Christian Curnyn.
Ciara Hendrick is a lover of song repertoire
and highlights have included a recital for
the National Gallery’s Facing the Modern
exhibition with Sholto Kynoch and a recital at
Handel House in honour of the composer’s
330th birthday. This year she has made her
harpsichord debut in The Devil to Pay on Brook
Street. Plans include Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été,
Nerone (Handel’s Agrippina) and a recital for
the English Song Festival.
Merry Holden
Merry Holden dancer
Merry Holden has worked extensively with
leading opera companies in productions
including: Candide (Opéra National de
Lorraine); Medea, Parsifal and Turandot (English
National Opera); Robert le diable (Royal Opera
House); and The Fairy Queen (Glyndebourne
Festival).
Her live music and performance credits also
include The Merchant of Venice (Almeida
Theatre); Nutcracker! (New Adventures at
Sadler’s Wells and a UK tour); Electric (Pet Shop
Boys’ world tour and New Year’s Eve concert at
Edinburgh Castle); Museum of the Future (Icon
Dance at the British Museum); Plunge (National
Dance Company Wales); and Interwoven
(LamatDance in Spain and Bulgaria). Her film
and music videos include Elemental; E.N.D. (The
Magic Numbers); and Thursday (Pet Shop Boys).

Jimmy Holliday
Jimmy Holliday bass
Jimmy Holliday started singing aged 6 at Lichfield
Cathedral. He studied at the Royal College of
Music and at the National Opera Studio, winning
the inaugural Richard Van Allan Award and the
10th Hampshire Singer of the Year Competition.
He frequently works with the UK’s leading
consorts, choirs and ensembles, has given
recitals at various UK festivals and is a regular
oratorio performer.
His roles have included Bottom (A Midsummer
Night’s Dream) and Sarastro at the Royal College
of Music; and Nick Shadow (The Rake’s Progress),
and King Heinrich (Lohengrin) for Ostrava Opera
Company. He made his ENO debut in Wolfgang
Rihm’s Jakob Lenz. Recent projects include Colline
(La bohème) for Opera North; Billy Jackrabbit
(The Girl of the Golden West) for ENO; and the
title-role in Britten’s Noye’s Fludde for Charles
Hazlewood’s Orchestra in a Field festival.
Kirsty Hopkins
Kirsty Hopkins soprano
Kirsty Hopkins read Music at Manchester
University and continued her vocal training at
About the performers
Trinity College of Music, where she won the
Elizabeth Schumann Lieder Prize.
Recent stage work includes Thomas Tallis at
the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse; the creation
of the title-role in Sally Beamish’s Hagar in the
Wilderness; and singing on stage in Rambert’s
ballet Labyrinth of Love. Recent concert
performances include Purcell’s The Indian Queen
under Harry Christophers; Messiah with the
English Chamber Orchestra; Monteverdi’s Vespers
with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
and I Fagiolini; and the Soprano Evangelist in
Arvo Pärt’s Passio with the Hamburg Symphony
Orchestra. Kirsty Hopkins is also a keen consort/
choral singer and a member of The Sixteen and
Alamire. Plans include playing Ruth Ellis, the last
woman to be hanged in the UK, in Charlotte
Bray’s new opera Entanglement.
Matthew Long
Matthew Long tenor
Matthew Long was a successful treble soloist,
singing the role of Miles in Britten’s The Turn
of the Screw for Italian opera houses. He read
Music at the University of York and won a
scholarship to the Royal College of Music. While
there, he was a Susan Chilcott Scholar and an
RPS Young Artist.
He has been a member of The Sixteen and
Tenebrae. His debut solo disc with the London
Philharmonic Orchestra and pianist Malcolm
Martineau, Till the Stars Fall, was released earlier
this year and combines English song repertoire
and British folk songs.
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 Bourne’s New Adventures, performing in Edward
Scissorhands, The Car Man, Nutcracker!, Swan
Lake, Sleeping Beauty and Lord of the Flies, on
both national and international tours; he has
played principal roles, was Dance Captain for
the 2014 tour of Lord of the Flies, and features on
the DVDs of Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty.

He has also collaborated with choreographer

Dougie Thorpe (Mad Dogs Dance Theatre) on
the creation of work that went on to become
Beast, and choreographer Drew McOnie in
Martha McLorinan association with ReBourne for the Queen’s
Jubilee celebration, held in the grounds of
Martha McLorinan mezzo-soprano Buckingham Palace.

Martha McLorinan was born in Shrewsbury and

studied at the Royal Welsh College of Music &
Drama. She has received prizes from the Thelma
King Award and Royal Over-Seas League.

Her roles have included Notary’s Wife and Anna

(Intermezzo) and Lotinka (The Jacobin) at Buxton;
soloist in Stockhausen’s Mittwoch aus Licht at
the BBC Proms; and Tenth Ewe (Sir Harrison
Birtwistle’s Yan Tan Tethera with Britten Sinfonia).
Other highlights include Messiah with the City of
Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under Simon
Halsey and the English Chamber Orchestra
under Nigel Short; Brahms’s Liebeslieder Waltzes Simon Palmer
at Kings Place with The Sixteen under Harry
Christophers; Bach’s Magnificat in Malta with Simon Palmer dancer
the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under
James Burton; and Duruflé’s Requiem with Ex Simon Palmer graduated from the Northern
Cathedra under Jeffrey Skidmore. Plans include School of Contemporary Dance in Leeds, before
Elgar’s The Music Makers at Tewkesbury Abbey. touring with its postgraduate dance company
Verve. He developed an interest in physical
theatre, object manipulation and puppetry,
performing extensively and internationally with
both Tilted Productions and Theatre-Rites.

Other theatre includes The Drowned Man: A

Hollywood Fable for Punchdrunk, Mucky Pup
for Theatre Alibi, Time for Tea for Wet Picnic,
The Weirdy Beardies, The Nerdy Birdies and The
Librarians for Pestiferous Theatre. As a dancer,
Simon Palmer has worked with Hofesh Shechter,
Fin Walker, Arthur Pita, Kim Brandstrup, Luca
Silvestrini and Shobana Jeyasingh.

Luke Murphy

Luke Murphy dancer

Luke Murphy graduated from Northern Ballet

School in 2006, and immediately joined Matthew
14

L/ ukasz Przytarski
/Lukasz Przytarski dancer
/Lukasz Przytarski was born in Gdynia, Poland,
and graduated from Rambert School of Ballet
and Contemporary Dance in 2013.
He has worked with choreographers including
Kerry Nicholls, Mark Baldwin, Itzik Galili, Vivien
Wood and Hubert Essakow. He has performed
at the Print Room Theatre, Lilian Baylis Studio
and Linbury Studio in London; Dance City in
Newcastle; Durham Cathedral; Warsaw National
Theatre and the Baltic Opera House in Gdansk.
He moved back to Poland in 2014, where he has
worked with Uri Ivgi and Johan Greben. He also
joined Nowy Teatr in Warsaw, performing Claude
Bardouil’s Exhausted/Wyczerpani.
Rebecca Rosier
Rebecca Rosier dancer
Rebecca Rosier is also a writer and musician,
and is originally from Bath. She studied Creative
Writing and Dance at Roehampton University.
She has worked as a dancer and choreographer
for numerous companies across the UK, as
a songwriter and performer in the musical
About the performers
duo Bim, and as a writer for advertising. She
is particularly interested in the intersections
between art forms, and explores these through
film and stage work.
Rosana Ribeiro assistant director
Rosana Ribeiro was born in Lisbon and studied at
Chapito, a school for circus and performing arts.
She moved to the UK in 2008 and graduated from
the Northern School of Contemporary Dance.
Now living in London as a freelance dancer, she
has performed with Hofesh Shechter, Jean Abreu
Dance, theMiddletonCorpus, Kim Brandstrup,
Charlie Morrisey, James Wilton, Cody’s Moving
Group, English National Opera (Rigoletto and
Between Worlds) and the Royal Opera (Nabucco
and Eugene Onegin), among others.
In 2013, she founded the Katarse Ensemble and
choreographed/performed the solo, Fuel, in
various venues around London, such as Rich Mix,
Roundhouse and The Place (Resolution!14).
Nefeli Sidiropoulou costume
Nefeli Sidiropoulou is a member of Cutline
Collective and has a decade’s experience in art
direction for film, commercials, music videos,
visual merchandising and live events. She gained
a BA in Set Design for Film from the Hellenic
Cinema and Television School Stavrakos and an
MA in Costume Design for Performance from the
London College of Fashion.
Greg Skidmore
Greg Skidmore baritone
Greg Skidmore enjoys a varied musical life,
totally obsessed by 16th and 17th century music.
15
 Originally from Canada, the English choral
tradition drew him to the UK and, after studies at
London’s Royal Holloway, he spent six years as
a cathedral Lay Clerk, at Wells then Gloucester,
and Christ Church, Oxford. The University of
Oxford also briefly distracted him with doctoral
research in musicology, but his current mix of
solo, consort, and choral work, alongside a
burgeoning conducting career, is now his focus.
He regularly performs with The Tallis Scholars
and Gabrieli Consort; his solo engagements
have included concerts with Ex Cathedra, Irish
Baroque Orchestra, Orchestra of the Age of
Enlightenment and the City of Birmingham
Symphony Orchestra. When not making music,
he is a gadget geek and a fan of American
basketball.
Giles Thomas sound designer
Giles Thomas trained at the Liverpool Institute
of Performing Arts, from which he graduated
in Sound Technology. His work spans theatre,
film, TV and gaming. His current theatre credits
include Outside Mullingar at the Theatre Royal,
Bath; and Pomona at the National Theatre and
Royal Exchange. He was recently nominated for
Best Sound Designer in the 2015 Offie Awards.
Giles Thomas has worked on many critically
acclaimed projects, including as associate sound
designer on Henry V in the West End; composer
for the CERN exhibition of the Large Hadron
Collider at the Science Museum; and composer
and sound designer for the Royal Court’s weekly
rep season.
Ksenia Vashchenko costume
Ksenia Vashchenko is a member of Cutline
Collective and has worked in fashion, film and
theatre as a maker, designer and supervisor in
Paris and London.
She gained a BFA in Fashion Design from
Parsons Paris School of Art & Design and an MA
in Costume Design for Performance from the
London College of Fashion.
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I Fagiolini
The name I Fagiolini has been misspelt and
mispronounced throughout the world. The
group has always been interested in the way
audiences receive music and began staging
unusual Renaissance pieces in the 1990s with
Peter Wilson. The Full Monteverdi (2004–7),
dramatising the composer’s Fourth Book of
Madrigals, was a considerable step further
and was followed by Ed Hughes’ The Birds (a
new opera for vocal ensemble and actors).
Tallis in Wonderland (polyphony de- and re-
constructed) came in 2009 and various reprises
of the South African collaboration Simunye
with SDASA Chorale from Soweto. In 2012, I
Fagiolini collaborated with Australian circus
company Circa to produce How Like An Angel
for London 2012, which was also set in English
cathedrals and went to New York in 2014.
Twenty recording projects have focused on
unknown Renaissance repertoire with a side-
step series into Monteverdi. In 2011 the group
released the world premiere recording of
Striggio’s Mass in 40 Parts, which stayed at the
top of the specialist classical chart for nearly four
months and won the 2011 Gramophone Early
Music Award and a Diapason d’Or de l’année.
This was followed by another large-scale CD,
1612 Italian Vespers.
This year features not only Betrayal but also
Carnevale Veneziano – a night on the piles in
the UK and Italy, a month-long tour to Australia
for Musica Viva, a Schütz/Victoria project, a
staging of L’Orfeo in Venice and a major new
CD of French 20th-century repertoire, including
the first recording since the 1950s of Francaix’s
Ode à la gastronomie. The group also provides
the music for the new feature film Draw on, sweet
night about the English madrigalist John Wilbye.
I Fagiolini is also Associate Ensemble at the
University of York.