Summer Festival 2023: A Cantiga by Alfonso X
- Date: Wednesday 5 July 2023, 19:30 –
- Location: Clothworkers Centenary Concert Hall, Music
- Cost: £10 (general admission) and free for students
This cantiga represents a concerted effort to reproduce this genre for a modern audience, presenting a combination of three different arts: lyrics/poetry, painted miniatures, and music notation.
A cantiga is a medieval monophonic song, characteristic of the Galician-Portuguese lyric. Over 400 extant cantigas come from the Cantigas de Santa Maria, composed by Alfonso X El Sabio; narrative songs or hymns in praise of the Holy Virgin. This cantiga – ‘CXV The Longest Cantiga’, represents a concerted effort to reproduce this genre for a modern audience, presenting a combination of three different arts: lyrics/poetry, painted miniatures, and music notation. ‘CXV’ narrates the miracle of a child who travels for several years seeking salvation from the coming of the devil at his fifteenth birthday. The child travels from Rome to Paris, Armenia, and Antioch, where he encounters a Pope, the Patriarch of Syria, the Mother, the Devil, an angel, a hermit, and the Virgin Mary. Behind this performance, a screen will project the original miniatures which accompany the cantiga as well as surtitles.
In collaboration with Instituto Cervantes.
- Paloma Gutierrez del Arroyo (voice)
- Manuel Vilas Rodriguez (harp)
Please note that doors will open from 7pm. Book your ticket.
Find out more about Summer Festival 2023: Untold, Unheard and Hidden Stories.