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New York Times
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Rhythm Is The Cure

"STABAT MATER:
DONNA DE PARADISO"

The Easter opera, "Stabat Mater: Donna de Paradiso," was presented April 6-9, 1995, at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, where the company is in residence, receiving wide audience and critical acclaim. The Very Reverend Dean James Parks Morton called the "Stabat Mater" one of the best productions at the Cathedral in the last twenty-three years.

Composer JOHN LA BARBERA has created this very successful production in the form of a Medieval Passion Play, based on the treasured Lauda ("Praise") poems written in the 13th-century by one of Italy's most important Medieval poets, Franciscan monk Jacopone da Todi (1228-1306). La Barbera's score takes its inspiration from the forms of Medieval Laudes, Motets, and Sicilian laments for Holy Week. Alessandra Belloni has adapted the poems and directed the production, performed in Italian and Latin with English narration.

The rhythms are drawn from North African, Middle Eastern, Southern Italian and Spanish traditions. The unusual instrumentation demonstrates the unique and scholarly background of Mr. La Barbera, and uses both standard and Renaissance guitar, Egyptian oud, violin, viola, cello, flute, oboe, recorders, clarinet, trumpet, pipe and tabor, Italian bagpipes, and Middle Eastern and Southern Italian percussion (dumbeck, snare and frame drums, and rachets).

The opera/passion play concentrates on Mary's pain as Jesus dies on the cross, which also serves as a symbol of the universal grief of the Mother. In traditional Sicilian style, the opera will include a procession of penitents, dressed in gowns of black for death, red for blood and white for resurrection.

Mezzo-soprano Alessandra Belloni appears as the Mother Mary, moving the audience to participate in her sorrow for her dying son. The production also features baritone Ivan Thomas, who just debuted at La Scala in Milan, as St. John, Anthony Giangrande as Jesus, and Mark Greenfield as the narrator/poet Jacopone da Todi. They will be joined by a company of 15 musicians, actors, dancers and singers, including four principal singers from the choir of the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, directed by Bruce Fifer. The Opera is performed in a candle light procession, making the Stations of the Cross, with audience particpation.

What the reviewers say:

"To say that the Cathedral of St. John the Divine presented something new and unusual for the season seems flabby and redundant; it usually does. But here. . . was something truly different: a lavish passion presentation called, "Stabat Mater: Donna de Paradiso," in which audience members, carrying lighted candles, joined hooded penitents in a procession through the Stations of the Cross. . . . It was slickly produced and smoothly executed. . . and Mr. La Barbera's four-part setting of the ancient Stabat Mater text made for a touching leitmotif."
James R. Oestreich, The New York Times