A Contemporary Opera Capturing the Ecstatic Flagellations of Renaissance Nun Saint Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi
Composer Salvatorre Sciarrino Captures the Ecstatic Flagellations of Renaissance Nun Saint Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi
Opera Infinito Nero
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| Maria Maddalena de'Pazzi |
Mystical ecstasy is the elevation of the spirit to God in such a way that the person is aware of this union with God while both internal and external senses are detached from the sensible world. Maria Maddalena de'Pazzi) was so generously given this special gift of God that she is called the “ecstatic saint.”
Catherine de’ Pazzi was born into a noble family in Florence in 1566 (commonly referred to as the Renaissance). The normal course for such a woman would have been for her to have married into wealth and enjoyed comfort. Ironically, Catherine chose to follow her own path and at the age of 9, learned to "meditate" from the family confessor. She made her first Communion at the age of 10, and made a vow of virginity a month later. At 16, Catherine entered the Carmelite convent in Florence because she could receive Communion daily there.
Catherine had taken the name Maria Maddalena and had been a novice for a year when she became critically ill. Feeling close to death, her superiors let her make her profession of vows in a private ceremony. Immediately after, Maria Maddalena fell into an "ecstasy," something that was repeated after Communion on the following 40 mornings. These ecstasies were apparently rich experiences of union with God and supposedly, contained marvelous insights into divine truths, wherein she would dictate her visions and premonitions to a group of novices who recorded them between stretches of long periods of silence and explosive, rapid burst of speech wherein it took four novices to transcribe them! But the ecstasies didn't comprise just spiritual highs and visions; Catherine would undergo ecstatic masochist self flagellations during these periods! She had violent temptations and endured great physical suffering and finally died in 1607 at age 41 and was canonized in 1669.
Of course, this is all very dramatic, and drama is what opera is all about! This is where the contemporary Italian composer, Salvatore Sciarrino, enters the picture.
Sciarrino also managed to capture and reinvent the madrigals of Gesualdo in his collection Le voci sottovetro, which translates as "voices behind glass," with his own touches- at once, undeniably "old" music, and yet, most certainly "Sciarrino," to put it best.
This blending of the old and new has become a hallmark of Sciarrino's music, and one which is absolutely fascinating, if one can endure the challenges of contemporary music or listen to Gesualdo with an open mind. Interestingly, the two works, Infinito nero and Le voci sottovetro. The two sets of works somehow blend together programmatically, not only because they are the works of Sciarrino, but perhaps because one can't help to make the connection of the ecstasy / lunacy between those of Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi' and Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa.
Catherine de’ Pazzi was born into a noble family in Florence in 1566 (commonly referred to as the Renaissance). The normal course for such a woman would have been for her to have married into wealth and enjoyed comfort. Ironically, Catherine chose to follow her own path and at the age of 9, learned to "meditate" from the family confessor. She made her first Communion at the age of 10, and made a vow of virginity a month later. At 16, Catherine entered the Carmelite convent in Florence because she could receive Communion daily there.
Catherine had taken the name Maria Maddalena and had been a novice for a year when she became critically ill. Feeling close to death, her superiors let her make her profession of vows in a private ceremony. Immediately after, Maria Maddalena fell into an "ecstasy," something that was repeated after Communion on the following 40 mornings. These ecstasies were apparently rich experiences of union with God and supposedly, contained marvelous insights into divine truths, wherein she would dictate her visions and premonitions to a group of novices who recorded them between stretches of long periods of silence and explosive, rapid burst of speech wherein it took four novices to transcribe them! But the ecstasies didn't comprise just spiritual highs and visions; Catherine would undergo ecstatic masochist self flagellations during these periods! She had violent temptations and endured great physical suffering and finally died in 1607 at age 41 and was canonized in 1669.
Of course, this is all very dramatic, and drama is what opera is all about! This is where the contemporary Italian composer, Salvatore Sciarrino, enters the picture.
Salvatore Sciarrino and the Monodrama Infinito Nero
Salvatore Sciarrino enjoys popularity today in the avant-garde scene of contemporary music, as much for his brilliant and yet challenging music as for his own ecstatic outbursts (which I've experienced on more than one occasion!). But he has always had a knack for harnessing (dark) past historical events, from such tales of Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi to the re-workings of the brilliant yet arguably unhinged madrigalist, prince / count Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa, who lived between 1566-1613, and was known for having murdered his wife, her lover, and the child he believed was the bastard of said lover. Sciarrino wrote the extraordinarily haunting monodrama, Infinito Nero (Eternal blackness), using snippets of Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi's ravings or ecstasies (depending on how one would view them) with his own unique blend of silences, extended techniques on instruments bordering on whispers, and ecstatic outbursts from the mezzo-soprano, to whom he's assigned the part of de' Pazzi. The music that threads these parts together ranges from beautiful, soft elements to radical extremes.Sciarrino also managed to capture and reinvent the madrigals of Gesualdo in his collection Le voci sottovetro, which translates as "voices behind glass," with his own touches- at once, undeniably "old" music, and yet, most certainly "Sciarrino," to put it best.
This blending of the old and new has become a hallmark of Sciarrino's music, and one which is absolutely fascinating, if one can endure the challenges of contemporary music or listen to Gesualdo with an open mind. Interestingly, the two works, Infinito nero and Le voci sottovetro. The two sets of works somehow blend together programmatically, not only because they are the works of Sciarrino, but perhaps because one can't help to make the connection of the ecstasy / lunacy between those of Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi' and Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa.
My new music and multimedia group, ENSEMBLE / PARALLAX did a tour of both of these pieces, featuring the exquisite soprano, Kathleen Roland-Silverstein, in both pieces. For those of you who might be curious about how Sciarrino captures the "ecstasy" of de' Pazzi in Infinito Nero, I encourage you view our version of this piece, performed at NY City's National Sawdust theater. The following is the final four and half minutes of Infinito nero, with the brilliant video of multimedia artist, Wolfgang Lehmann:
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