Atalante

$20 general admission, $15 seniors, WUSTL Fac/Staff, $5 students.

TICKETS 

ATALANTE
Erin Headley, director
 
Program to feature works from composers Luigi Rossi, Marco Marazzoli, and Domenico Mazzocchi.
 
Musical treasures that have languished in Roman archives for over 300 years are now being brought back to life through the extraordinary performances, award-winning recordings and sumptuously staged videos of Erin Headley’s Europe-based ensemble, Atalante. Each Vatican manuscript reveals the poignant and stirring narrative of an ancient Classical or Biblical figure, set to music by 17th-century composers Luigi Rossi, Marco Marazzoli, Giacomo Carissimi and Domenico Mazzocchi, who reached new heights of musical realism, sensuality, ecstasy and eroticism, and helped to create the style that was first awakened in Rome and later came to be known as the ‘Baroque’.
 
Atalante’s semi-staged performances with singers in evocative costumes based on Rubens and Caravaggio, emblems and attributes, and elucidating surtitles create an unforgettable, fully immersive experience. Helen of Troy, Armida, Artemisia, Mary Magdalene, Orfeo and Euridice appear as if they are stepping out of a painting.
 
At the heart of Atalante is Erin Headley’s lirone, that 14-string bowed chordal instrument whose magical powers were known to transport the listener to the other world. Combined with the Italian triple harp, chitarrone and harpsichord, a luxuriant continuo ensemble accompanies this sublime repertoire.
 
‘Breathtaking performances of delicious music…’
Marc Rochester, Gramophone
 
‘Atalante will surely come to be regarded as a something of a milestone…a more powerful   and persuasive advocacy for these pieces could hardly be imagined.’
Iain Fenlon, Early Music
 

About Atalante:

Erin Headley's award-winning ensemble Atalante is named in honor of Leonardo da Vinci's friend and pupil Atalante Migliorotti, the lirone's inventor. That magic and hauntingly beautiful bowed instrument has been Erin Headley’s domain since 1980, through an astonishing number of performances and recordings that have been acclaimed worldwide. In the 17th century the lirone was associated with the lament, a genre that first appeared during the generation of Monteverdi and reached its culmination in Rome. Atalante's luxurious continuo band of  triple harp, chitarrone, keyboards, viol consort and lirone accompany a sublimely dark repertoire that has been languishing in the Vatican Library for 300 years. Atalante's début in October 2009 at the Southbank Centre in London – in staged performances of the laments of Artemisia, Helen of Troy, Mary Magdalene and the Blessed Virgin – was a revelatory experience for public and critics alike. 

Atalante's exploration and revival of this fascinating repertoire, including the staging and filming of it, has received continuing support from the Arts and Humanities Research Council of Great Britain, making it possible to offer the public a new and exciting, fully immersive experience.To date Atalante have made four recordings in their series Reliquie di Roma – music by Luigi Rossi, Marco Marazzoli, Giacomo Carissimi, Domenico Mazzocchi, Bernardo Pasquini and Alessandro Stradella – two discs of which have already been released by Destino Classics (Nimbus Alliance) and received the highest critical acclaim. Filmed video clips of staged versions of the works with subtitles can be seen on YouTube and in HD on Vimeo.