Quadrivium couldn’t have planned some mid-winter tomfoolery at a better time.
The new vocal ensemble has scheduled a rare performance of a Renaissance madrigal comedy for Feb. 3. If you’re planning on watching the Snowdown Parade, you can easily make it over to the 7:30 curtain of “L’amfiparnaso” at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship at 319 San Juan Drive. There’s plenty of parking, and this rather bawdy tale of on-again, off-again love suggests the lord of misrule reigns in early February.
Orazio Vecchi’s 1597 comedy unspools in a series of 15 scenes, supported by lively madrigals as a musical backdrop. Five singers will romp through the stories of commedia del’arte characters. Silly, raucous, and sublime, they include a scheming Pantalon, an all-too-clever Hortense, lovers Isabella and Lucio, who fall out through a misunderstanding, and the boisterous braggart Capitan Cardon. The singers will be joined by actors miming the comic convolutions, and it all ends at a wedding with a lineup of hilarious gifts and givers.
“The Vecchi piece is a ‘bucket-list’ piece for any singer who loves madrigal singing,” Kerry Ginger said in a recent email. “It’s intimate, beautiful and playful. The music is tricky, varied and intelligent, and singers often find themselves switching roles to inhabit different characters.”
Ginger and her colleagues formed Quadrivium in 2016 and have performed rare vocal chamber music throughout the Southwest. This is the third recital in the 2017 UU series. The ensemble varies between four to five singers depending on the music. The full complement of Quadrivium singers includes: Ginger, tenors Erik Gustafson and Cory Klose, baritone Michael Hix and soprano Charissa Chiaravalloti.
In addition to the Vecchi comedy, Quadrivium will intersperse three modern madrigals by American composer Ned Rorem that will magically comment on the comic Italian story.
Judith Reynolds is an arts journalist and member of the American Theater Critics Association.
If you go
What: Quadrivium presents Orazio Vecchi’s L’amfiparnaso, a Renaissance madrigal comedy.
When: 7:30 p.m. Feb. 3.
Where: Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Durango, 319 San Juan Drive.
Tickets: $20 adults, $8 children and students with ID, available at the door.
More information: Call 385-8668.
