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Bologna Harp Festival - 5th edition
February 9, 9 pm

THE POSILLIPO SIREN

Musical show freely based on the life of Adriana Basile

Adriana Basile , sister of the writer  Giambattista Basile  and of the composer and poet  Lelio Basile , was a famous Neapolitan singer and harpist of the early seventeenth century , also renowned for its exceptional beauty. Her fame attracted the interest of some writers who dedicated their poems to her: the  Theater of the glories of Mrs. Adriana Basile to the virtue of her of the harps of the Amphions of this century manufactured , a collection printed in 1623 and 1628, and  The idea of the vigil , from 1640. 

The first news about him dates back to  1610 , when she moved with her family and her husband Muzio Baroni, a nobleman in the service of the  Carafa , a  Mantua  at the court of  duke  Vincenzo I Gonzaga , where the great composer Claudio Monteverdi himself was struck by the beauty of her voice and composed several works for her.

TO  Florence  was hosted in the house of  Giulio Caccini , where the members of the  comrade de 'Bardi and the count himself  Giovanni Bardi , confirming that she was the best singer in existence.

 

The show presents a musical and poetic journey that traces the life of the mezzo-soprano: some Neapolitan arias , many written in her own hand by the singer herself in Spanish and extracted from the famous manuscript now preserved in the National Library of Naples (MS. I-NN, MS  XVII.30), cantatas written by her brother and dedicated to her, works for harp from the great seventeenth-century Neapolitan school (Trabaci, Mayone), madrigals she sang at the courts of Florence and Mantua and works by Claudio Monteverdi dedicated to Adriana Basile, such as the famous Lamento d'Arianna. The show also offers, in addition to the recitation of letters and poems dedicated to the singer, a stage version that evokes life in seventeenth-century Naples in a subtle and contemporary way .

Arianna Lanci  voice

Marco Muzzati  percussion and acting

Marianne Gubri  baroque harp

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