Death of Gesualdo | Gesualdo Six + actors

Concert Theatre Works brings together the internationally celebrated vocal group The Gesualdo Six, six actors, and ground-breaking puppetry in a uniquely intense drama. 

Following 30 cities of largely sold-out performances, The Gesualdo Six reunite with director Bill Barclay to create a follow-up to the hit show, ‘Secret Byrd’.

Carlo Gesualdo, the Prince of Venosa, was an extraordinary Renaissance composer. Despite his musical brilliance, years ahead of his time, he is historically infamous for murdering his wife and her lover in bed. In a life marked by phycological turmoil and violence, his final years were filled with self-flagellation and despair.

In Barclay’s new, original staging, the singers are joined on stage by six actors and a puppet. They strike stunning tableaux vivant (living pictures), filled with iconography, to superimpose Gesualdo’s psyche onto his most chilling music. The music is centred around Gesualdo’s Tenebrae, the mass that Gesualdo wrote for his own death, and his most fascinating Madrigals. Choreography comes from world renowned Will Tuckett.

The result is the boldest look yet at how the life and music of this enigmatic prodigy must be combined for the true Gesualdo to emerge from the shadows.