In the third book of his Republic Plato writes, “Take that harmony that would fittingly imitate the utterances of a brave man who is engaged in warfare.” In other words: fuse the action to the music, and the music to the action. Upon reading this, Monteverdi was inspired. He developed his stile concitato, first heard in Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda. His music conveys specific sounds of war – horses galloping, swords clashing and even the heavy breathing of exhausted lovers engaged in battle. In the context of 17th century musical norms, this cohesive approach to operatic scena was ground breaking and injected his work with a spirit of burning immediacy. We too have delved into the past to invigorate our staging of these three pieces.

 Monteverdi looked to Plato’s assertion that there are three humours that compose a human being which we have reflected in this triple bill:

 Reflective; seen in a woman’s pensive sadness in Lamento della Nympha. Spirited; Clorinda’s heated and tragic romance in Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda. Appetitive; Lieschen’s insatiable caffeine mad rebellion in Bach’s Coffee Cantata.