Lecture: Michele Pasotti in conversation with Donald Macleod

Drawing on Monteverdi's own account of the work's first performance in 1624 at the Palazzo Mocenigo in Venice, Michele Pasotti will show how this striking piece originally unfolded before an audience of Venetian nobles, reportedly moved to the brink of tears.

Central to this reconstruction is Monteverdi's own guidance in the preface to his Eighth Book of Madrigals, where he outlines a carefully structured sequence designed to heighten the work's expressive and theatrical impact through contrast. Pasotti examines how these insights inform a historically grounded performance approach, which best reveals the interplay between music, text, and staging.