Singer

Following our highly acclaimed productions of Curlew River and The Prodigal Son, Enigma Chamber Opera completes our exploration of Benjamin Britten’s church parables with The Burning Fiery Furnace.

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The Burning Fiery Furnace

The Cathedral Church of St. Paul, Boston

Don’t miss this concert program the Boston Globe calls “stellar” and the Boston Classical Review has dubbed “a hauntingly beautiful and uplifting occasion fit for the holidays.”

Our program offers a selection of music for the Christmas season—plainchant, carols, and polyphonic antiphons and settings of the Mass—that might have been heard in England in the 1440s, when the most modern of the works on the program were composed. The carols, drawn from several manuscripts, are written in a robust popular style with graceful melody and simple harmonies, while the polyphony dazzles with complex cross-rhythms, dashing melodies, and clangorous harmonies, all in celebration of one of the most glorious seasons of the Christian year.

Christmas in Medieval England

First Church in Cambridge

Songs about love & freedom, nightingales & other musical birds from Le Rossignol musical (Antwerp, 1597), by Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, Claude Le Jeune, Andreas Pevernage, Cipriano De Rore & others – a program premiered at Antwerp’s Laus Polyphoniae festival in August 2023.

Le Rossignol Musical

Following our highly acclaimed production last year of Britten’s Curlew River, Enigma Chamber Opera bring you another of the church parables: The Prodigal Son.

In this entirely new staging of the piece, we uncover themes of family relationships, division and reconciliation, and the part we all should seek to play in our communities. Last year’s Curlew River taught us that, even in the toughest times, we will find comfort. ‘The Prodigal Son’ shows us how we should be that comfort for those around us.

The Prodigal Son

The Early Baroque era of Italian music brought a zenith of dramatic and technical display in the hands of new generations of virtuoso singers and instrumentalists. Composers and performers united in their course of revealing new depths of expression, color, and theatrical effects through music that is immediately thrilling and enthralling.  From the delicate and spatial interplay of three violins in Marini’s Sonata in Ecco to the full-throated and lovelorn dramatic vocal works of Monteverdi — including two epic narratives from his Madrigals of Love and War — this is a program that moves from mystery to magic and from the sacred to the secular.  Headliner works are Isabella Leonarda’s entrancing Sonata XII, Monteverdi’s Magnificat a 6 from the Vespers of 1610, and the same composer’s powerfully arresting setting of Torquato Tasso’s Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda. An ensemble of evocative ABS artists brings this passionate music to light in a program featuring vocal and violinistic fireworks. 

David McFerrin

Baritone

Events

16 - 17 Feb, 2024

The Burning Fiery Furnace · Enigma Chamber Opera

15 - 16 Dec, 2023

Christmas in Medieval England · Blue Heron

Oct 14, 2023

Le Rossignol Musical · Blue Heron

21 - 22 Oct, 2022

The Prodigal Son · Enigma Chamber Opera

Apr 29 - May 2, 2022

Pious & Profane · American Bach Soloists

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