Italian composer Salvatore Sciarrino had already begun work on an opera based on madrigalist Carlo Gesualdo's notorious murder of his wife and her lover in 1590 when he learned that Alfred Schnittke was working on a similar project. He deleted the sections of the text and music that specifically referred to Gesualdo and used a chanson by Claude le Jeune for 1609 as the musical reference for the opera. Luci mie traditrici (Oh My Betraying Eyes) is spare in the extreme, both in its instrumentation and fragmented vocal ...
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Italian composer Salvatore Sciarrino had already begun work on an opera based on madrigalist Carlo Gesualdo's notorious murder of his wife and her lover in 1590 when he learned that Alfred Schnittke was working on a similar project. He deleted the sections of the text and music that specifically referred to Gesualdo and used a chanson by Claude le Jeune for 1609 as the musical reference for the opera. Luci mie traditrici (Oh My Betraying Eyes) is spare in the extreme, both in its instrumentation and fragmented vocal gestures. The listener willing and able to surrender to Sciarrino's austere textures and unconventional melodic writing can experience the opera as an intense, sharply focused work with surprising musical and dramatic power. The more conventional sections, in which Sciarrino uses le Jeune's chanson in increasingly menacing manifestations, help anchor the opera emotionally and contribute to the mounting tension leading up to the murders. By the final appearance of the chanson and depiction...
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