Sonia Prina & Roberta Invernizzi

Eros and Thanatos: love and death. As the Baroque-lover will undoubtedly have known, they are two sides of the same coin. The delightful torments of love feature in countless 17th and early 18th century Italian madrigals and chamber duets. Roberta Invernizzi and Sonia Prina – blessed respectively with a clear soprano and a deep contralto – bring us a selection. Accompanied by Ensemble Claudiana, they sing of fidelity and infidelity, hope and despair, and all the other emotions Eros arouses in his victims. That rich palette took on the most diverse musical guises: whimsical drama, sensual lyricism, vocal acrobatics and unadulterated melodrama. In their expressive duets, Monteverdi, Marcello, Lotti, Durante and Handel pulled out all the stops. Dying for love isn’t done quietly.