“A riveder le stelle”: La Rossignol at Pandino castle
On 18 April 2021, at the Visconti castle in Pandino, the La Rossignol ensemble recorded songs, music and dances from the 13th to the 16th century set to lines from Dante’s Comedy. Five cameras, the drone, multitrack recording and two video concerts: one for the Italian Cultural Institute in Istanbul, one for Casablanca.
La Rossignol has performed early music and dance since 1987: it studies the sources, the instruments, the images of the period, and brings them to the stage. In spring 2021 it prepared a concert to be watched online: songs, music and dances from the 13th to the 16th century, woven together with lines from Dante’s Divine Comedy. We filmed and edited it together with Marco Alpi.
A 14th-century castle as a set
The recording took place on 18 April 2021, in the Hall of Frescoes of the Visconti Castle in Pandino, in the province of Cremona. Eight performers in costume: Letizia Dradi and Liliana Baronio, dance; Roberto Quintarelli, voice and dance; Elena Bertuzzi, voice; Erica Scherl, vielle; Levi Alghisi, recorders and bagpipe; Francesco Zuvadelli, positive organ and hurdy-gurdy; Domenico Baronio, lute, mandora and percussion. The programme and musical reconstructions are by Domenico Baronio, the choreography by Letizia Dradi, the costumes by Bruno Fontanella.
Around them, five cameras. Outside, the drone, for the shots of the castle that open the concert. The audio was recorded multitrack, one track per voice and instrument, and in stereo.
Between the dances, the verses
The pieces come in with their title card, title and source: the VII Estampie Royal, from the Ms du Roy; the Ballo Marchesana by Domenico da Piacenza; Il ballo del fiore by Fabritio Caroso. Between one piece and the next, lines from the Comedy, recited in the castle loggia: “Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita”, “Vergine Madre, figlia del tuo figlio”, “A l’alta fantasia qui mancò possa”.
Two concerts, two cities
The same footage produced two video concerts, with partly different programmes.
- “Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita…”, 55 minutes, produced by La Rossignol for the Italian Cultural Institute in Istanbul: it opens with the Institute’s logo and the words “Suono italiano on line”.
- “A riveder le stelle”, 53 and a half minutes, for Casablanca.
For each piece the running order named the best take, sometimes the start of one and the end of another, with the minutes marked. From there came the five-camera edit, the colour grading, the titles, and then a spot to launch them.
From 18 April, 1,225 files remain in the archive, about one terabyte.
Frames: from the footage shot by Marco Alpi and GR STUDIO SRL.
