Salvatore Sciarrino

A voice behind the curtain. Antique beauty disappears: It will always return, the same music, and each time it will be marked by the wounds of time. And throughout the entire work it accompanies the events that are not told. Little happens, almost nothing. But every action leaves behind infinite echo. Shadings, insinuations, contradictions that accumulate and change; before and after, full and empty; impenetrable silence, in which question blurs into question and answer into answer. A magnificent room prepared for seduction. Even death beckons. Usually long alternating scenes provide air to breathe, not so in this case. Close and open eyes and ears to the light, yet breathtaking as it comes full circle. On the stage, peopled by so many hybrids today, this opera emerges as an opera in the genuine sense of the word.

It does not return to already existing patterns, it does not benefit from cheap rhetoric. Instead, it derives its power from the expression of song, the creation of a vocal style, a newly invented style. Instruments usually serve as the foundation. In this case, voices are the gravitational centre around which the other sounds orbit. Torn constellations embody streams of conscience. As though you could hear what the protagonists sense around themselves.

The audience knows very well what will happen, what must happen. It gradually discovers the magic of the performance, becomes one with the actors who lead us beyond ourselves. There is an emotion tangible amidst the audience, an emotion thought lost and no longer believed possible. We do not know whether and how things will continue after Luci mie Traditrici. But we have the privilege of witnessing the recreation of music tragedy. - Salvatore Sciarrino