This programme is the fruit of an erudite investigation led by Katarina Livljanić : prayers (from the Book of Radoslav), incantations (Glava Hr'stova), excommunications (Koli že krešten ne budet), exorcisms (Zaklinam tebe, prinecisti dusce), meditations orchestrate a programme based on the individual polarity of life/death and, more largely, creation/destruction. The itinerary is also structured by declamations drawn from the tombs, in the manner of an ancient choir, as we learn from the libretto: a harsh polyphony in the ganga style, marked by chromatic effects and microtonality. (…) Since the sources are virtually silent on the musical dimension, these evocations are based on the vocal practices that survive in orality. A laboratory where paganism is not missing from this melting pot, and where spirituality is imbued with folkloric elements.
The variety of sounds and sound effects (the spatial echo of Bože, davno ti sam legao) help to immerse us in this field of mysteries and symbolisms around primitive existential questions emanating from the Balkan soil and its complex, yet fertile, religious dynamics.
Christophe Steyne, Crescendo, December 2024 (Belgium)
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In Meudon, the Dialogos ensemble brings Hecuba back to life
Revived to the taste of a double Italian and Croatian Renaissance, the Queen of Troy, surrounded by a few selected partners, sings of hope and sacrifice, life and death, dreams and reality. Tragic and magnificent.
The set design by Sanda Hržić, a regular on the ensemble's projects, subtly enhances this rich abundant poetic-musical discourse.
The movements, sometimes off-stage, of the actors-singers and musicians and, those of the chorus (alternately close-knit or dispersed), the interplay of glances, and the discreet props, all underline the steps of the drama. The alternating of ancient dialects (Croatian and Italian), the transition from an ornate monody, whose rhythm matches that of the text, to a polyphony of simple note-on-note shifting, the declaimed-sung phrases accompanied by drones, the spoken voice, the harshly vocalised choir – all carve out a continuous and contrasting narrative.
(...) The musical reconstruction managed by the "Dialogos laboratory" hits the nail on the head. The ancient modality is willingly 'distorted' by insistent chromaticism, enhancing the discourse; flutes and strings creep into the vocal material, taking up a line, anticipating a motif, suggesting an imitation; a few dance themes slip here and there...
Katarina Livljanić brings this desperate, vengeful queen to life without ever falling into the trap of exaggerated acting. Her long, flexible, fine voice, dignified stage presence and delicate expressivity are all there, very simply and justly at the service of the music and the text.
(Anne Ibos-Augé, Diapason, 16/11/2023)
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Old is no longer what it was
(…) Ensemble Dialogos did not forget that all music - including the very oldest - is mostly the art of storytelling. (…) We went to a concert of early medieval music and came home with stories about perversions, violent acts, murders and miracles. Say again that classical concerts are boring ! (…)
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