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Fans of The Full Monteverdi can now keep in touch using our official Facebook page.
American blogger Paul Padillo has reconsidered his first reaction to The Full Monteverdi; now past his initial misgivings about the mixing of old and new, he now finds it an “oddly beautiful… gem of a movie”. Read his complete posting here.
Filed under: screenings
The Full Monteverdi opens in cinemas across New Zealand today, 24th June, care of Rialto Distribution.
Filed under: Music
Music director Robert Hollingworth offers fascinating insights into the music of Monteverdi in his keynote speech for the Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music.
The Full Monteverdi will be making a trip to Orkney, where the St Magnus Festival will screen the film at the New Phoenix Centre in Kirkwall. Showings take place on 22nd June at 4pm and 6pm.
The Full Monteverdi draws more acclaim in South Africa. Paul Boekkooi of Independent News and Media hails the film as “frontier-shifting musical drama”, “a brilliant idea: to show through contemporary everyday 21st-century environments and the latest film techniques, but without any CGI intervention, how Monteverdi’s texts… can spell out every emotional conflict lovers still feel today” that is “diligently thought through and well-crafted to the hilt.”
Filed under: General
The Full Monteverdi‘s opening weekend at cinemas in South Africa has been well received. According to The Sunday Times there, “it’s daring, original and, for classic music buffs, it is a unique treat”, while Artsmart describes the film as an “audacious cinematic experiment by John La Bouchardiere so skilfully devised and presented that by the end it is impossible not to be drawn in to the dramatic interactions”.
For this week’s timings, visit the listings page at Polyphonic Films.
Filed under: General | Tags: Monteverdi cinema South Africa Cape Town Durban Johannesburg Pretoria
The Full Monteverdi will be released across South Africa by Ster-Kinekor Cinemas on Friday 2nd April. Multiple screenings will take place each day in Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg and Pretoria.
Filed under: Broadcast
The Full Monteverdi will be back on Australian television soon. SBS will broadcast the film again on 20 February 2010 at 1pm, offering viewers a cheery way to start their Saturday afternoons.
Music director of The Full Monteverdi, Robert Hollingworth, will be talking on BBC Radio 3 this Sunday 31st January about why Monteverdi’s fourth book of madrigals is top of his list of all-time favourites:
At school in chemistry lessons, instead of writing up experiments, I used to list my all-time favourite cricketers. (Mr Morris encouraged my parents to let me give up chemistry.) On going to university to read music, my tutor John Milsom, perhaps recognising this penchant for lists, asked me what I thought were the greatest books of madrigals ever and while we argued about 2nd and 3rd place, there was never any question of what came first: Monteverdi’s 4th book of madrigals from 1603. It has an unequalled variety and a virtuosity that leaves you breathless, but what hit me as a 20 year old setting up my own solo-voice ensemble was its emotional power.
For years, I performed these pieces with I Fagiolini, noting the different audience reactions. Although I find UK audiences very sophisticated when it comes to listening to Renaissance polyphony in general, I was often disappointed when it came to their emotional reaction to Monteverdi which seemed to be more intellectual than emotional – although that was perhaps more how they expressed what they felt.
Anyway, when John La Bouchardière came along with his idea of dramatising an entire book of madrigals, that same 4th book, I was very interested, though quite skeptical as I didn’t think an audience would be able to listen to that much polyphony without some help along the way by means of pauses. We tried it out and the rest is history – but the thing that convinced me to go ahead with the project was that it would change the way some audiences heard and felt the music.
Sunday’s programme on Radio 3 looks at nearly all of Monteverdi’s 4th book, in performances by I Fagiolini and The Consort of Musicke along with the two top Italian ensembles, Concerto Italiano and La Venexiana. This comparison with the other groups should be interesting in itself and a non-dramatic introduction to the pieces worthwhile for anyone who has seen the film but not looked at the music on its own. For my part, I now find it quite difficult to sing the music without remembering what happened in The Full Monteverdi at that point…
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To hear the programme and for more about the show:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00qbzp9
Filed under: General
To support the theatrical releases of The Full Monteverdi we have re-cut the trailer. It now focuses on the characters rather than simply the concept, and we’ve added a few quotes in for good measure. Watch it below on YouTube or click here for a larger QuickTime HD stream.
Filed under: General
“This film is a brilliant adaptation of Monteverdi’s Fourth Book of Madrigals that is totally faithful to the composer’s music… a brilliant conceit and it works spectacularly well… This film makes explicit the drama that is inherent in the music and poetry and can, therefore, do a great deal to promote appreciation of Monteverdi’s madrigals… members of I Fagiolini sing with tremendous expressivity, flawless intonation, and amazing vocal technique. So convincing was their performance that it was not difficult at all to suspend disbelief… This is a highly recommended DVD that should prove attractive to both opera lovers and early music devotees.”
William E. Grim Opera Today (USA) Aug 2009
http://www.operatoday.com/content/2009/08/the_full_montev.php
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The UK premiere on SkyArts prompted a new and rather nice review in the Independent on Sunday, in which the film’s realism came in for particular praise:
“John La Bouchardière’s adaptation… had a poignancy that only those who have married their childhood sweetheart and lived happily ever after would fail to recognise… Shot in a series of unremarkable flats and streets, at restaurant tables and in toilet cubicles, with mascara, snot, baby bellies, wrinkles, receding hairlines and all the accoutrements of experience exposed, this was an exceptionally well-crafted, thoughtful film, beautifully sung and very bravely acted.”
Read the full review, here.
The Full Monteverdi will receive its UK television premiere on 25th December at 20.00 on both SKYARTS 2 and SKYARTS HD. Head of Programming, Adrian Zak writes: “The Full Monteverdi was one of the first projects I was involved with here and it is one of those I am most proud of. We wanted to give it the slot it deserved.”
Given that Gramophone magazine’s critic, Richard Lawrence, recommended that viewers might “need to be in pretty good emotional shape to… survive the experience of watching it”, some may be surprised by the decision to broadcast the film on Christmas day. Director John La Bouchardiere, however, is sticking to his guns: “It will certainly be an unusual antidote to tinsel television but Christmas is about valuing relationships, so just cuddle up in front of the telly and share what’s left of the sherry.”
For full Press Release CLICK HERE
The Full Monteverdi 