Vox in Femina

The woman and the poetic of madness 

for female voice and images
A project by Laura Catrani

Vox in Femina is an idea. A circular drawing of silent images.
Vox in Femina is breath and dance. A body that becomes the voice, song, whisper and scream of all women, in an anthropological journey into the female world.

Laura Catrani, soprano
Francesco Lupi Timini, Lucio Basadonne images
Music by:
Hildegard Von Bingen, Cathy Berberian, Niccolò Castiglioni, Luciano Berio, Delilah Gutman, Alessandro Solbiati, John Cage, Matteo Franceschini, David Zelavi.

I imagined Vox in Femina in 2010, born from the need to mirror myself in an authentic identity, driven to a complex and difficult choice: the voice alone without musical accompaniment. On the theatrical space, therefore, alone, through singing I lead the concert. Silence, invited as a travel companion on my journey, has taught me not to be afraid of it. The beating of the heart, the imperceptible movement of the eyelashes, the jolt of the breath have opened a gash in my perception of the music; Singing dialogues with the silence from which it draws inspiration and strength.
The images, curated by Francesco Lupi Timini and filmed by Lucio Basadonne, have the function of keeping the viewer’s attention tied to a common thread, delicately accompanying the voice in the circular design that this concert creates. The images tell the essence and technique of the pieces in execution, while enhancing the emptiness of the theatrical space. With a reference from the distant Middle Ages of Hildegard von Bingen I come to the essential contemporary repertoire of Luciano Berio, Cathy Berberian, Niccolò Castiglioni and John Cage. On stage I am also a spokesperson for new music, which has more strongly theatrical accents, which also colors the sounds and noises of everyday life and which the composers Alessandro Solbiati, Matteo Franceschini and Delilah Gutman wrote specifically for this concert and for my voice.
Vox in Femina is therefore research into female language and acoustic experimentation, which brings infinite voices and potentials to the center of the discourse, in an expressive kaleidoscope in which neurosis and madness often reach out. The voice, like a light turned on in the dark, brings to the surface even the smallest gestures of the real world or of inner movement and lays bare the vast and sensitive universe of women.

Vox in Bestia

The animals of the Divine Comedy 

Laura Catrani – Soprano
Original music for solo voice by:
Fabrizio de Rossi Re – Inferno
Matteo Franceschini – Purgatorio
Alessandro Solbiati – Inferno
Dante Alighieri, Tiziano Scarpa – Script
Gianluigi Toccafondo – Video Animation

A project by Laura Catrani for solo voice

Cerberus, the coluber, the augello, the eagle, the bee, the lamb. But also the astor, the worms and the trapdoors.
Three poetic places emerge from the three cantos of the Comedy in which wild beasts and imaginary animals are always a link between men and God: an extraordinary “poetic bestiary”, fantastic, bristling with symbols, but at the same time real.
This is the heart of Vox in Bestia, a project by soprano Laura Catrani conceived on the occasion of the seven hundredth anniversary of Dante’s death.

First national radio show – May 2021 RAI Radio3 in fifteen episodes
Finalist in the Prix Europa 2021, category for best European musical radio podcast
25 concerts throughout Italy in six months
Record release for Stradivarius, May 2022

Virtuosissima Sirena

A evening in the Strozzi house, listening to Barbara

Laura Catrani, soprano
Accademia dell’Annunciata
Angelo Calvo, Archimede De Martini, Violins
Cristina Vidoni, cello
Laura La Vecchia, Theorbo
Riccardo Doni, harpsichord and direction

Lyrics by Guido Barbieri

PROGRAM

– Marco Uccellini:
Corrente IX da Sonate, arie e correnti Op. 4
Per 2 violini e b.c.

– Barbara Strozzi:
La vendetta
A voce sola, 2 violini e b.c.
L’amante segreto
A voce sola e b.c.

– Dario Castello:
Sonata IX dal libro primo – Venezia 1629
A due Violini e Violone

– Barbara Strozzi:
Parasti in dulcedine
A voce sola e b.c.
Tradimento
A voce sola, 2 violini e b.c.

– Giovanni Legrenzi:
La Savorgnana
A due Violini e Violone

– Barbara Strozzi:
Lagrime mie
A voce sola e b.c.
Costume de’ grandi
A voce sola, 2 violini e b.c.

“Virtuosissima sirena” aims to draw a faithful and affectionate portrait of the greatest Italian composer of the seventeenth century. The choice of cantatas and arias reflects the variety of styles, attitudes, and affects that cross his music: from the intense tragos, exemplified on the model of the lament, of large and extended cantatas such as Lagrime mie or L’amante segreteria up to the tone brilliant, parodistic, playful of short and dazzling ariettes such as Tradimento or Costume de’ grandi. But the concert is not a simple sequence of “selected pieces”. Through a series of narrative miniatures placed in the junctures of the program, one of the historic “meetings” that brought into the Strozzi house is reconstructed, as recounted in great detail by the Veglie de’ Signori Academici Unisoni, an anonymous chronicle published in 1638, the most illustrious members of the Academy of Unisons. The scene, suspended between reality and imagination, is this: Barbara, during a vigil, reads an “academic discourse”, written by Matteo Dandolo and Gian Francesco Loredan entitled Contesa del canto e delle lagrime. He listens to the opinions of the scholars, intervenes, comments, and of course illustrates his ideas through song. What triggers the amorous passion – the Discourse asks – with greater force: the abstract affects of singing or the concrete weakness of tears? A question to which Barbara answers with her own words, but above all with the enchanted beauty of her poetic and musical voice.
Guido Barbieri

Box 1

Besides the exploration of a new operatic expression in the chamber opera, our repertoire is focused on the contemporary opera and its influence on the modern art. Discover the best performers and plays.

Box 2

Besides the exploration of a new operatic expression in the chamber opera, our repertoire is focused on the contemporary opera and its influence on the modern art. Discover the best performers and plays.