Concert project: On tour with Scarlatti!

Domenico Scarlatti (1685 – 1757) who was born in Naples and who lived and worked Italy, Portugal, England and Spain is best known for his harpsichord sonatas. His vocal works (both sacred and secular) are much less well known, but certainly of very high quality. For that reason the Key2Singing foundation has chosen to undertake this unique project, which is now fully underway!

Our motivation to perform this music began with the discovery, by Margot Kalse our musical and artistic director, of the availability of two Scarlatti manuscripts in Portugal. Following some research it became clear that the Laetatus sum manuscript had already been used for publication and performance. Nevertheless due to its good readability we chose to use facsimiles of the voice parts to study and perform the music. While this approach is indeed more challenging for the singers than transcription into modern notation, it provides a much deeper insight into and feeling for the authentic structure of the music as originally written.

The second manuscript, a Te Deum, was less well readable and therefore we chose to transcribe it into its individual voice parts for study and performance. It is very similar musically to another of Domenico’s Te Deum’s but this version seems not to have either been published or performed in the modern era.

To complement these two works Margot choose the Domenico’s outstanding 10 part Stabat Mater for performance by the choir. This piece is especially notable for its setting which includes four soprano lines. And to complete the programme with a contrasting example of his secular vocal music Margot choose an extract from Domenico’s seldom performed opera Tolomeo e Alessandro. We have been very fortunate to obtain an abridged version of the score especially edited for us by the renowned baroque specialist and publisher of the opera, Alan Curtis.

We are now working hard to combine these choral and vocal works together into a single theatrical experience using staging, lighting and moving scenery.

All our singers are experienced and vocally trained amateurs, from whom six of the most talented play solos roles in the opera. The singers taking part thus gain the experience of learning to sing from part scores written in the original notation and key signatures of the time, and are coached to perform in an authentic baroque style, using the appropriate vocal techniques

We plan to surprise our audiences by a novel theatrical setting of the opera combined with the choral works so that both vocal styles complement and respect each other, in such a way that the whole shall be greater than the sum of its parts.

We work with an excellent creative team under the leadership of our project, artistic, musical leader and conductor Margot Kalse, with stage direction by Petra van Aken.

In addition to our performances in the Netherlands, we also follow literally in the footsteps of Domenico Scarlatti, by performing at locations in Italy and Portugal where he worked during his lifetime. In Rome we sing in the Sancta Maria Maggiore basilica, where he was choir master and in Portugal in the Paço Ducal museum in the town of Vila Viçosa, where the original manuscripts from which we perform are to be found

Planned performance details:

- Saturday 9th & 10th May, Rome
- Sunday 24th May 12:00 Hofjes concerten, Pieterskerk, Leiden
- Friday 12th June 20:00 Warenar theatre, Wassenaar (The Hague)
- Sunday 14th June 20:00 Leidse Schouwburg, Leiden
- Friday 11th December, Paço Ducal, Vila Viçosa, Portugal