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- Girolamo Muzio

VILLA MEDICIS 2021

A journey of drama, music and poetry.

Night. A figure and a fantasy, a tomb and the secret garden of real and fantastic creatures, the night is forever a dark elixir from which countless artists have drunk. An allegory of poetic mysteries and unspeakable desires, it is also a symbol of the darkness into which the world today seems to be sinking. It fascinates at the same time that it frightens us.

A commission by the Villa Medicis to Marcus Borja, following on from his residency there in April-May, Note di Notte is an immersive polyphonic fresco in 10 languages. A scenic, literary and musical crossing tailored to the spaces and interior architecture of the Villa.

The piece highlights the madrigals of the end of Cinquecento and the beginning of Seicento (Monteverdi, Rossi and Gesualdo), as well as the immemorial songs of the Italian peninsula and melodies of Dowland, Ravel, Schumann and Nino Rota. The words of Dante, Petrarch, Seneca, Calvino, Shakespeare, Hölderlin, Büchner, Mallarmé and Stig Dagerman blend and overlap in a skillful nocturnal weave, bursting through space.

Credits

Concept, stage and musical direction: Marcus Borja
Light design: Gabriele Smiriglia

© Photo credit:  Marcus Borja

With
Capucine Baroni, Émilie Bouyssou, Helena Bregar, Cyprien Brod, Sophie Canet, Geoffrey Carrey, Valeria Dafarra, Ève Doe Bruce, Rémi Fortin, Ayana Fuentes Uno, François Gardeil, Mathieu Gourlet, Magdalena Ioannidi, Melki Izzouzi, Matilda Kime, Antoine Maitrias, Jean-Max Mayer, Alexandre Nicot, Elena Packhäuser, Andrea Romano And Sophie Zafari.