Squillante Archive

Maurizio SQUILLANTE: The Wings of Daedalus – ZKM Institute for Music and Acoustics/Maurizio Squillante – Wergo

by Audiophile Audition | Sep 20, 2017 | Classical CD Reviews

Maurizio SQUILLANTE: The Wings of Daedalus – ZKM Institute for Music and Acoustics/Maurizio Squillante – Wergo 2073-2, 74:40, (8/18/17) **: Stretching the definition of ‘opera’… This is easily one of the strangest things I have heard in awhile. This does not mean I didn’t like it – at least a little. Maurizio Squillante is an Italian composer who specializes in both electronic soundscapes as well as extended vocal techniques; both of which summarize the palate of this ‘neo-Baroque opera’ (as say the booklet notes.) Finding out about Squillante is daunting as I could not find a website of his and all we can gather from the helpful booklet notes is that his medium is regularly electronics and that the text/libretto for this work is, indeed, the Greek myth of Icarus and Daedalus who tried to be as birds and fly. In many places the texts are isolated and monadic; barely sung and really hard to understand. The notes do correctly point out that much of this approach to vocal writing has its roots in Monteverdi who—in turn—wrote several operas on mythological themes. The libretto itself, in English, is by playwright David Haughton and this work was conceived in 2004 for […]