Discover the gruesome life and chilling music of Gesualdo
One of only three UK performances, Tuesday 20 October sees striking staged production 'Death of Gesualdo' bring together the spine-tingling music of revered Renaissance prince and composer Carlo Gesualdo and the tale of his gruesome life.
Celebrated early music group, The Gesualdo Six are joined by six actors and a life-like puppet to transport audiences into the hallowed world of the Renaissance court and the psychosis which afflicted this musical genius.
A stunning series of ‘tableaux vivants’ (living pictures), filled with iconography taken directly from Renaissance painting, superimpose Gesualdo’s psyche onto his most chilling music.
About Carlo Gesualdo (1566-1613), Prince of Venosa
The Guardian feature by Bill Barclay
Carlo Gesualdo wrote some of the most darkly sublime music of the late Renaissance. He also savagely murdered his wife and her lover in their bed. Now be honest: which would you like to discuss first?
The art will always be secondary to the atrocity, however magnificent the madrigals and sacred music. Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa, had been cuckolded by the Duke of Andria in a long-running tryst that had become the scuttlebutt at court. The premeditated double murder of 1590 was a truly grisly affair, concluding in the public display of their mutilated bodies on the steps of the palazzo for several days.
Gesualdo’s biography is often reduced to this act, yet his own end, too, was harrowing. Twenty years on, the prince had retreated to his estate to indulge in a life of ritualistic agony, reportedly employing servants to beat him thrice daily to ease sleep and constipation. This domestic nightmare included the presence of two concubines accused by his second wife of witchcraft against him. Their ghoulish testimonies, elicited under torture, suggest a household that had descended into a gothic psychosis.’
Gesualdo’s reputation as a composer centres on his haunting madrigals – not for him the sunlit, pastoral ones of Thomas Morely. His six books of secular madrigals, and the powerful end of life sacred work ‘Tenebrae Responsoria’, are captivating, revealing dissonance and jarring harmonies that pushed the polyphony to its emotional extremes. Characteristics which saw his revival in the 20th century when figures like Igor Stravinsky became enamoured with his sound world.
“Barclay has assembled a fantastic team for this production and it shows…Owain Park…coaxes the singers to extract every atom of anguish and exquisite melancholy from the composer’s work…another fantastically thought-provoking experiment from the Gesualdo Six, that will no doubt expand audiences for their namesake’s shocking, otherworldly vision. A dark treat for sombre times.” – Rachel Halliburton, The Arts Desk, 19 January 2026
About Bill Barclay
Director, writer, and composer Bill Barclay has created dozens of theatrical concerts with the world’s most prominent ensembles. He is Artistic Director of Concert Theatre Works and was Director of Music at Shakespeare’s Globe (from 2012-2019).
Major tours include ‘The Chevalier‘ (London Philharmonic Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Center, Tanglewood, Chautauqua, Music of the Baroque, Harlem Chamber Players, Caramoor, Snape Maltings, Buffalo, Virginia, Indianapolis); ‘Secret Byrd‘ for The Gesualdo Six and Fretwork (30+ cities on tour); Anthony & Cleopatra (LA Philharmonic, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Virginia Symphony); ‘Peer Gynt‘ (Boston, Cincinnati, St. Louis and Milwaukee Symphony Orchestras); and ‘Markus Passion‘ for Oregon Bach Festival, Dunedin Consort & The Sebastians (NYC, Pittsburgh, Edinburgh, Aldeburgh, Portland, Seattle, Eugene, Chicago). He has been commissioned five times by The Boston Symphony Orchestra, appearing across nine seasons.
Other projects include directing the Silkroad Ensemble on tour, ‘Beyond Beethoven 9’ for Marin Alsop, Romeo & Juliet and ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ for Andris Nelsons, ‘L’Histoire du Soldat’ for Charles Dutoit, ‘Four Seasons Reimagined’ for Max Richter and puppeteers Gyre & Gimble, and ‘1791: Mozart’s Last Year’ for Gianandrea Noseda and The National Symphony Orchestra.
As a composer, Barclay composed the historic ‘Hamlet Globe-to-Globe ‘which toured to 189 countries, and ‘Call of the Wild’ that performed in 42 US states. He has composed three times for the British Royal Family, for President Obama, for the Olympic Torch, at the United Nations, and in refugee camps in Jordan and Calais.
His newest work ‘Letters to a Young Poet’ premiered with The Brodsky Quartet at The Aldeburgh Festival before performances at Lincoln Center and Tanglewood. He regularly appears in major international festivals in Kilkenny, Spoleto, Lammermuir, Edinburgh, Death of Classical, Chelsea, Oxford, Bath, Teatro a Mil, Perth, Canterbury, Aldebugh, and many others.
About Gesualdo Six
The Gesualdo Six is an award-winning British vocal ensemble directed by Owain Park. Through imaginative programming, exceptional musicianship and a spirit of curiosity, the group has established itself as one of the world’s foremost vocal ensembles, performing more than 100 concerts each year across Europe, the Americas, Asia and Australasia.
“Ingeniously programmed and impeccably delivered, with that undefinable excitement that comes from a group of musicians working absolutely as one.”
Recent highlights include appearances at Canterbury Cathedral, the Edinburgh International Festival, AMUZ, Rheinvokal and Festival de Rocamadour, as well as Tokyo’s Bunka Kaikan, New York’s Miller Theatre and the Sydney Opera House. Following its BBC Proms debut in 2023, the group returns to the Royal Albert Hall in the 2026 season and holds a five-year residency as Wigmore Hall Associate Artists.
Collaboration is central to The Gesualdo Six’s artistic identity. Alongside performances with Fretwork, Chelys Consort and the Brodsky Quartet, the ensemble tours two acclaimed concert-theatre productions created with Concert Theatre Works and director Bill Barclay: Secret Byrd and Death of Gesualdo.
Book your ticket for Death of Gesualdo on Tuesday 20 October here.
