Circa Ensemble: Il Ritorno

Circa Ensemble
Natalie Murray Beale, musical director
Kate Howden, mezzo-soprano
Robert Murray, tenor

Presented by the Philharmonic Society and Musco Center

Part of the Eclectic Orange Series, sponsored by Judith and Howard Jelinek
Concert sponsored by Donald and Karen Evarts

MONTEVERDI: Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria (scenes)

Against a stark black wall, acrobats strive to connect with each other, while music from Monteverdi’s opera Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria is played and sung by a live chamber ensemble.

Akin to a physical poem, the staging sees seven highly skilled artists precariously lift, hold, levitate and fall, their movements driven by the forces of desire, devastation and absence. At the core of this show is the hunger to return home–saturated with loss and war, powered by longing and haunted by the past.

Il Ritorno is created by circus visionary Yaron Lifschitz in collaboration with composer and arranger Quincy Grant and the Circa Ensemble.