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World premiere on the opera film Gesualdo · Shadows by Bo Holten

© Eva Sommestad Holten

World premiere on the opera film Gesualdo · Shadows by Bo Holten

Bo Holten's fascination with the Italian prince and composer Carlo Gesuldo has been manifested in a modern Baroque opera, that is now released on DVD.

New release
09 August 2018

The conductor and composer Bo Holten has long been fascinated by Carlo Gesualdo – an Italian prince and one of the most extreme composers of the Late Renaissance, whose dramatic life and bitter fate make up the plot in Holten’s and librettist Eva Sommestad Holten’s ‘modern baroque opera’ Gesualdo · Shadows, that is released on DVD on August 17.

Extreme renaissance composer wowen into present time

As a prince Carlo Gesualdo could compose exactly what suited him and did so. This gave his music a different, wilder face than that of his contemporaries.

Gesualdo was a neurotic, experimental, ‘modern’ personality, who among other things dramatically took the life of his unfaithful wife and her lover, and his dramatic life and bitter fate were inextricably bound up with the colourful, torn and profoundly despairing music he produced.

In Gesualdo - Shadows the extreme renaissance composer is portrayed from a from a passionate youth to an old age of mysticism, violence and melancholy. Gesualdo’s own madrigals, fused into the score, contribute to a thrilling universe of pain and beauty.

Live recordings from The Funen Opera

The opera film is based on live recordings from The Funen Opera, performing the opera with a team of dedicated soloists and the two internationally renowned ensembles Musica Ficta og Concerto Copenhagen.

World premiere on Næstved Early Music Festival

The opera will be released on DVD on August 17, but already on August 15 it will have it's world premiere on the Næstved Early Music Festival. 

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