GIULIA. PRINCESS OF NAPLES

A prodigious singer, theatrical impresario, and high-class courtesan, Giulia De Caro was one of the most scandalous figures in seventeenth-century Naples. Through the unpublished cantatas composed for her by Prince Giovanni Cicinelli and an original dramaturgical framework, the concert restores the human and artistic profile of an extraordinary woman whose life trajectory embodies emancipation and social redemption through the practice of the stage.

Musically, Giulia. Princess of Naples entrusts Talenti Vulcanici — the ensemble conducted by Stefano Demicheli — with bringing to life a complex and layered expressive universe. The cantatas performed by Laura Zecchini, among the winners of the most recent edition of the “Francesco Provenzale” Baroque Singing Competition, together with the original dramaturgy by Angela Di Maso and the narrative voice of Giuliana Carbone, weave together storytelling and music in a journey that reconstructs the human and artistic profile of the “Ciulla della Pignasecca.” The valuable musicological consultancy of Paologiovanni Maione and the philological work on the scores contribute to restoring, with historical precision and theatrical intensity, an emblematic story of Baroque Naples.

The new production premieres in Naples on the occasion of the exhibition “Donne nella Napoli spagnola. Un altro Seicento” at Gallerie d’Italia – Naples, before being performed again on 3 March in Stockholm at the Italian Cultural Institute. Further performances are scheduled in Turin, Genoa, and Viterbo.