Marcello Fera > Sancte Michael

Andrea Cavarra > fire-breather

Martina Marini > dance

Andrea Favari > voice

Werner Gasser > video

Quartetto Fera

Marcello Fera > violin

Riccardo Crocillo > clarinet

Orit Messner > violoncello

Sirio Restani > keyboard

The reason for this piece is to be found in the notion that the ongoing decay of cultures and ideologies introduces a time in which good and bad show their true colours. Immediately, we eye the numerous sites dedicated to Michael the Archangel, which exercise a magnificent fascination.

Sancte Michael is a work for baritone, four instruments, a dancer and a fire-breather that alludes to the vigil mass to the festivities of Saint Michael, set to music by Marcello Fera. It is characterizing for the work to include into the performances the morphology of the sites by means of lighting effects and video performances. The instruments and the singer are radially arranged on five pedestals and delimit the stage-area by performances of the dancers and the fire-breather. The musicians wear multicoloured dresses and perform solo at first, each in an individual tonal centre, outlining an ancient four-part symbology: eagle, bull, lion, human/angel. The singer contemporaneously fulfils the function of the narrator and of the prayer and sings the text of the parable – hard to understand at first but becoming more and more clear in certain key-scenes.