Der rote Mantel

‘This wonderful Andalusian who, like “black lightning, ever free” [...] still sings of love, joy and the pride of the people, is for us young people a master, friend and brother.’ This was Luigi Nono’s impression of the poet Federico García Lorca, whose Amor de Don Perlimplín con Belisa en su jardín inspired the Italian composer to create his first music theatre work, the ballet Der rote Mantel [The Red Cape] for Tatjana Gsovsky and the Berliner Festwochen in 1954.

Nono’s expressive but restrained ballet music serves less to illuminate the storyline than to establish its strange, surreal atmosphere through polyphony and the division of melodic line between instruments. In contrast, the composer creates theatrical and musical crystallisation points in his arioso sections, in which words and sound are poetically blended. Examples include the choral serenade and the Song of Belisa who, disappointed by her substantially older husband, falls for a young torero who turns out to be the jealous Perlimplín himself disguised in a red cape.