Strega

Before it became an accusation, witch was the name given to a woman who knew.

At first, she commands the spirits: Caldara’s Furies, Purcell’s sorceress, who calls and is answered. Then, in Händel, no one answers her invocation: «sorde da me: perché?» (deaf to me: why?).

What remains are the women who actually wrote this music: Francesca Caccini’s negative theology of love, singing all that love is not; Antonia Bembo, who must bow to a king to see her music in print; the trembling arm of Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre’s Judith.

And finally, the woods, where the witches’ dance breaks loose in ballads, tarantellas, songs of healing and revolt.