EIF Review: Death of Gesualdo

Following the critical success of The Secret Byrd, director Bill Barclay and the luminous vocalists of The Gesualdo Six have reunited to stage another masterpiece of early choral music. The Death of Gesualdo is an ambitious “theatrical concert” that attempts to make music visible, bridging the gap between Renaissance polyphony and modern performance art. So writes Alena Shmakova for the QR.co.uk…

Built on an impressive foundation of historical research, this collaboration expands its creative circle to include choreographer Will Tuckett and puppeteer Janni Younge.

Together, they transform Gesualdo’s complex vocal works into a fully staged dramatic experience, utilizing physical movement, period gesture, and living imagery to probe the dark nexus of artistic genius and human brutality, asking the audience: What do we do with the artistic heritage of monstrous people?

An Atmosphere of Mourning at Queen’s Hall

Entering The Queen’s Hall, a converted 19th-century church, one is immediately ushered into a funereal gloom. The lights are dimmed, the air is heavy, and the audience is, whether intentionally or by accident, cast as mourners in an ongoing ritual.

Yet in those moments before the music began, a striking irony took hold: while the stage stood ready to interrogate the legacy of a murderer, the audience remained entirely occupied with themselves, chatting and socializing. It served as a fleeting, unintentional prologue—a room full of people comfortably ignoring the moral weight of the space they occupied until the music finally forced their focus.

“Together, they transform Gesualdo’s complex vocal works into a fully staged dramatic experience, utilizing physical movement, period gesture, and living imagery to probe the dark nexus of artistic genius and human brutality, asking the audience: What do we do with the artistic heritage of monstrous people?“

At the centre of this production is Carlo Gesualdo (1566–1613), Prince of Venosa and Count of Conza. To musicologists, he is a revolutionary whose late madrigals and Tenebrae responsories employed a radical, jarring chromaticism centuries ahead of his time. To history, he is the aristocrat who, in 1590, discovered his first wife and her lover in flagrante delicto and had them brutally killed.

Historical Mismatches and Visual Iconography

To depict this troubled figure, the production relies on an array of historical techniques that are deeply intertwined, even if their timelines feel mismatched. The narrative is framed through early 17th-century codified gestures, theatrical puppetry—a craft revived in the Renaissance after medieval church bans—and a series of tableaux vivants (living pictures), a practice that emerged in the late 18th century before finding a digital afterlife during COVID-19 lockdowns.

Combining puppetry, 17th-century gestural codes, and 18th-century tableaux creates an eclectic timeline. Is this historical mashup a deliberate attempt to echo Gesualdo’s influence across centuries, or simply an aesthetic collision?

The staging demands a high level of visual literacy from the viewer. While the production does not provide explicit program references, the tableaux vivants draw heavily from the chiaroscuro tradition and the dramatic compositions of Caravaggio, highlighted by hand-held stage lighting. However, the occasional modern feel of these lighting choices sometimes conflicts with the historically inspired visuals.

Still, the framing directly echoes the psychological tension found in works like Judith Beheading Holofernes and The Calling of Saint Matthew, where gesture and shadow define the moral stakes of the scene.

This temporal eclecticism extends directly into Arthur Oliver’s costume design, introducing another puzzling historical divide: Gesualdo’s first wife wears early 15th-century dress, visually isolating her as an anachronism, whereas his second wife wears 16th-century attire matching Gesualdo’s own. Was this mismatch intended to symbolize her displacement, or simply an aesthetic contrast that inexplicably aligns the second wife’s style with his own?

Movement, Power, and Sacred Polyphony

Will Tuckett’s choreography presents a similarly mixed picture. On one hand, the movement attempts to mimic period dance, but it ultimately feels like a historical mismatch; true Renaissance dance is far more complex than simple walking, and here it is loosely blended with 17th-century courtly etiquette and modern movements.

On the other hand, Tuckett’s use of hand gestures offers a remarkably compelling reading of power and intimacy. During the wedding ceremonies, hand placement tells the whole story: the first wife asserts dominance by resting her hand above her husband’s, directly subverting period etiquette, while the second wife’s hand hovers just above his in a gesture of fragile, cold detachment.

Though she appears to despise him, she later seeks his focus, creating a confusing emotional contradiction that strays from known biographical accounts. Because certain scenes open themselves to broad interpretation or contradict available historical sources, a more detailed biographical context in the program notes would have helped anchor these ambiguous moments.

Nevertheless, the dramatic moments of Gesualdo’s life and its physical brutality are voiced entirely through his madrigals and motets, performed by The Gesualdo Six with crystalline precision. This structural choice creates a deliberate, deeply unsettling sonic contrast. To the modern ear, Renaissance sacred polyphony sounds serene, meditative, and uniform, akin to a quiet requiem mass.

Juxtaposing such “heavenly” music against raw scenes of violence and sexuality creates a jarring cognitive dissonance, forcing us to reconcile the sublimity of the art with the monstrous acts of its creator.

Once the singing begins, the room finally falls into a rapt, focused silence, as if the music itself has shamed the audience into acknowledging the gravity of the man whose life they came to witness.

Ultimately, I am not sure I enjoyed the performance, but I certainly did not dislike it either. It was undeniably thought-provoking, even if it left us wondering whether it truly helped answer its own central question—or simply left us sitting in the dark with the uncomfortable beauty of Gesualdo’s legacy.