Ravenna Festival: The Battle of Lepanto – Gianluigi Tosto & La Pifarescha
Free
Marco Ferrari, bombards, flutes, bagpipes, zurna, ney, & kaval
Stefano Vezzani, bombards, flutes, & drum flute
Mauro Morini, trombones, buisine, slide trumpet, & olifant
David Yacus, trombones, buisine, & olifant
Gabriele Miracle, war drum, tambourine, cymbals, triangle, castanets, tapan, naqqarat, riqq, & psaltery
Fabio Tricomi, vielle, drum flute, jew’s harp, tombak, davul, & tambourines
Gianluigi Tosto, actor
Musical selections from Moritz von Hessen, Francesco Bendusi, Josquin des Prez, Tielman Susato, Guillaume Du Fay, Jacobus Handl, Antonio Valente, Paolino d’Aquileia, & more.
Concept by Gabriele Miracle. Text by Gabriele Miracle and Mauro Morini.
The dawn of 7 October 1571, in the stretch of sea off the city of Lepanto, the Holy League, made up of Venetian, Spanish, Neapolitan, and Genoese forces together with those of the Papal State, faces the Turkish fleet and, after a long and bloody battle, defeats it, thus bringing to an end Turkish dominance over the Mediterranean. This is the historical episode from which the show takes its shape, in the form of a hypothetical travel diary: a common man, a man of the soil loaned to the sea and then projected into a whirlwind of experiences far removed from his small world, rich in simplicity yet at the same time poor on a human, financial and cultural level. But the story is not left to the words alone, because text meets music. On the one hand, the voice of Gianluigi Tosto frames the events, it enriches them with anecdotes, historical and literary testimonies, recreating the gaze and feelings of this man, protagonist of an extraordinary journey, against his will; on the other hand, the music chosen by La Pifarescha gives substance to the very dimension of the journey in that far-off century. Pieces with a cultured air convey the pomp of the European courts and the grandeur of the Holy League, others of a popular tradition instead take us back to the world of our hero, while those of the Balkan and Greek tradition refer to the Mediterranean and Lepanto just as the thunderous fanfares of the Janissaries allude to the Turkish army.
The livestream will take place at 9:30pm Central European Summer Time / 12:30pm Pacific.
Watch the livestream here: https://www.ravennafestival.live/en/events/la-battaglia-di-lepanto/