Songs From The Labyrinth: 2006/07

Sting's Dark Renaissance...

The English pop star's technicians have been working since yesterday, ready to share the stage with sets and lighting for Preziosi's musical.

At the Teatro Verdi today with songs by John Dowland. His schedule is too busy, so he skips the award ceremony at the Palazzo Vecchio. After the concert, a vegetarian buffet and then a rush to Villa il Palagio. What's wrong with Sting? His technicians have been working since yesterday to set up the stage at the Verdi, where the now-former Police member performs tonight (8:45 pm, tickets sold out despite the high prices, minimum 40, maximum 80 euros) to present his latest album, 'Songs from the Labyrinth,' live, dedicated to John Dowland, a genius of English music from the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Mr. Sumner's team will be joined today by that of Give Me Three Caravels, the musical that opens tomorrow (tonight the sets will be hidden behind wings and backdrops, but Sting will still benefit from part of the Italian company's lighting system): an unprecedented overlap of talent at the Teatro Grande on Via Ghibellina. Truth be told, other, more ceremonial undertakings were also in the works: at Palazzo Vecchio, for example, there was the idea of bestowing upon Sting an honour that would finally seal his Tuscan heritage from an institutional perspective, a feat achieved thanks to the large estate in Valdarno, dominated by Villa il Palagio, where the album about Dowland was recorded (complete with birdsong and barking dogs in the background). But the Police reunion for the Grammys and the start of their "Renaissance" tour ruined everything.

Sting will be joined by Edin Karamazov on lute and the London-based ensemble Stile Antico, who will assist him on the polyphonic pieces. The CD will be performed in its entirety, including "Flow My Tears" and "Weep You No More, Sad Fountains," the two most famous songs made familiar to modern ears through the interpretation of countertenor Alfred Deller. The encores will feature the only snippets of Sting's repertoire, also with lute accompaniment: "Message in a Bottle" and "Fields of Gold." At some stops on the tour, Robert Johnson's "Hell Hound on My Trail" also made an appearance, chosen because the bluesman shares a common name with another 17th-century composer. Then, after a vegetarian reception reserved for Sting's guests (many of whom collaborate with Il Palagio), the group will return to their residence in Valdarno.

Little is known about Dowland. Sting's melancholic, dark nature, which the composer himself defined with a pun: "semper Dowland, sempre dolens," is undeniable. But there were other factors that drove him to be captivated by the music of the English genius. For example, his being a forerunner of singer-songwriters, not only because Dowland performed his arias and songs, but also because of his ability to distil the sensibilities of an era and its painful experiences into musical pages of rarefied beauty. And his feeling of being uprooted for reasons of faith: his conversion to Catholicism prompted a staunch Protestant like Elizabeth I to banish him from her court, contributing to a forced nomadism and the dark disorientation that always accompanied Dowland. Even when, in 1612, after wandering throughout Europe (including Florence) absorbing the most diverse intellectual moods, he was summoned by James I to return to an England that no longer recognized itself in his music, which was considered out of fashion. Dowland recounted his drift in a letter from 1595: Sting will read it tonight, sparing no thought about the composer. As if, through that genius of four centuries ago, he were also revealing a little of his own feeling alienated from today's pop.

(c) La Republica Firenze by Fulvio Paloscia