Les Kapsber'girls

The fascinating work of P. A. Giramo: La Pazza Venuta da Napoli, composed around 1630 in Naples, evokes the form of a secular cantata, a skilfully measured alternation between airs and stories for a woman's voice and continuo. But the plot and the compositional processes, in relation to the title - "pazza" which can be translated as "madness" - lead us to the heart of an unusual and exhilarating mixture of genres.

Between seriousness and humor, rhythms and harmonies playing with the effectiveness of popular oral melodies and the complexity of the musical language of the Italian courts, themes deliberately borrowed from popular composers and the inventiveness of the author, the worlds intersect in this "Pocket Opera to the tunes of Commedia dell'Arte.

Madness in love, a theme dear to the Humanists barely a century earlier, has not yet finished making people talk about it at the beginning of the 17th century. In the Pazza Venuta da Napoli, she captures the spirit of the lady harshly dismissed by the chosen one of her heart. It is born of this impossible love widely represented by the composers of the time.

Giramo lets us understand that no one is immune to being affected by the madness of love that affects Man whether he is poor or rich, illiterate or cultured, young or old, man or woman.

In the long version of the program, there are added works by Barbara Strozzi (1619-1677) who, with all the finesse of her melodic lines and her delicate texts outlines this madness without making it burst, suggests it, allows it to be glimpsed. but refuses to reveal it openly. Hieronymus Kapsberger (1580-1651) does not hesitate to name it and even give it its own existence in each of his songs where it is called lost, unhappy, impossible love.

Between staging and improvisation, Les Kapsber'girls proposes to evoke this amorous madness which was sung a thousand times in the South as in the North of Italy, in the city as at the court, in the streets of Naples as in the halls of the Barberini Palace.

Distribution
Alice Duport-Percier, Soprano
Axelle Verner, Mezzo-soprano
Garance Boizot, Viola da gambe
Albane Imbs, Archlute, baroque guitar and direction

Gio. Girolamo Kapsberger (1580-1651)
Deh Filli Vientene

Giovanni Battista Vitali (1632-1692)
Passa Galli, instrumental

Barbara Strozzi (1619 – 1677)
Tra le speranze e'l timore

Barbara Strozzi 
Begli Occhi

Francesco Corbetta (1615-1681) and Gaspar Sanz (1640-1710)
Folias, instrumental

Santiago de Murcia (1673-1739)
Tarantelas

Gaspar Sanz
Canarios

Gio. Girolamo Kapsberger
In te la vita

Gio. Girolamo Kapsberger
Fulminate

Barbara Strozzi
È pazzo il mio cor

INTERMISSION

Pietro Antonio Giramo
La Pazza venuta da Napoli