Breaking the Rules is a play/concert about composer and murderer Carlo Gesualdo (1566-1613) with live music from outstanding young vocal ensemble the Marian Consort, who so impressed audiences in last year's festival, and starring actor Finbar Lynch (star of ITV drama Breathless).
BREMF Co-Artistic Director, Clare Norburn wrote the play and introduces us to the play, Gesualdo and his extraordinary music....
2013 is the 400th anniversary of Gesualdo's death (1566-1613). Gesualdo really was a one off, both as a character and a composer. Although he was living and working in a period when composers were exploring a new musical language (known as the seconda prattica, which ultimately led to the development of opera), Gesualdo's music stands alone in its own sound world. It is emotionally taut in its chromaticism and intensely personal. He wrote six books of madrigals (mostly on erotic texts) and three books of sacred pieces including his monumental Tenebrae Responsories (27 motets in total).
To say that Gesualdo was not an easy man to live with is something of an understatement; contemporary accounts refer to both his arrogance and cruelty and yet he was also clearly sensitive and fragile. His bloody-thirsty murder of his first wife, Maria d'Avalos and her lover, Fabrizio Carafa, Duke of Andria was the scandal of the times due its particular violence, even though murdering your adulterous wife was the expected thing for any nobleman worth his salt in southern Italy at the time.
But above all, music was the key motivator in Gesualdo's life. He consciously left us an extraordinary legacy through his carefully considered publications. As a nobleman himself, with no need to please a rich patron, he was able to write whatever he chose, possibly freeing him from conventions that might otherwise have taken his music in other directions. He was a man who not only went against the social and religious code of the time, but who broke all the musical rules too. Musically at least, the results were simply extraordinary.
In Breaking the Rules, Gesualdo will be played by Finbar Lynch. Finbar's recent roles include The Cardinal in the Old Vic's 2012 production of The Duchess of Malfi intimidating gang leader Jody Farr in the BBC TV series Silk. Both are violent, dark roles which make for good pedigree for the challenging personality of Carlo Gesualdo. He is also playing Monty in ITV's current drama Breathless. The Director is Karolina Sofulak, who works regularly for Opera North.
Breaking the Rules is set on the final day of Gesualdo's life: 8th September 1613, when Gesualdo was 47. Gesualdo is alone in his chapel in his family estate in the hilltop village of Gesualdo, some 60 miles inland from Naples. Only two weeks ago his only son and heir died. Now he stares death full in the face, knowing that he faces purgatory for the multitude of sins he has committed.
The play opens with Gesualdo being haunted by a vision of his first wife, Maria (whom he had murdered 23 years before). He tries intoning religious platitudes but the only thing that finally frees him from the vision is to 'turn on' the music. Gesualdo's consort of singers are there in the chapel with him, but they are also the sound-track of Gesualdo's mind. Music acts as a trigger, prompting Gesualdo to remember key scenes in his life, including his mother's death when he was 7, his unsuccessful marriages - and, of course, the night of the murder itself....
Click here to buy tickets for Breaking the Rules starring Finbar Lynch, the Marian Consort and Celestial Sirens
Find out more:
Watch our preview film
Or read the Chichester Observer interview
