On December 8, the Paris Mozart Orchestra, under the direction of Claire Gibault, will perform the French premiere of Silvia Colasanti’s ORFEO. Flebile queritur lyra at the Lycée René Cassin in Arpajon as part of the orchestra’s social and education programme. The project consists of a tour of 16 concerts in the high schools of Paris’s banlieue through April 2015.

Colasanti’s ORFEO is a melologue for speaker and ensemble on a text drawn from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Recited by Suliane Brahim, the text has been translated into French for this project by Myriam Tanant. Following the tour of schools, the orchestra will present a number of performances in Paris, open to the general public.

Colasanti offers the following description of her work: “ORFEO. Flebile queritur lyra is a ‘concert’ for voice and ensemble, with a calibrated alternation between music and words. The music has a very intense dramaturgic function, expressing a primordial state of thought, when thought is not yet thinking, but still feeling. At certain points the sounds amplify the meaning of the text or underline certain features. At others they come to express something that is not spoken. For this reason, at times the music lives together with the word, and at others it is alone.”

After the world premiere in France, the Paris Mozart Orchestra will also perform ORFEO. Flebile queritur lyra in Italy.

Orfeo. Flebile queritur lyra (2009)
for actor and ensemble
WP: Rome, IUC, Grand Hall La Sapienza University, November 10, 2009
Ob., Cl., Bn., Hr., Perc., 2 Vl, Vla, Vc., Db.
Duration: 50’


Silvia Colasanti: work list