Luciano Berio — Melodrama

Melodrama, for tenor and eight instruments (1970) Gerald English, tenor The London Sinfonietta Luciano Berio Melodrama was later modified for incorporation into Berio’s “Opera“ (1970). The title refers to a musical form fusing speech and music that goes back as far as the grave-digging scene in Beethoven’s Fidelio and the Wolfs-Glen music in Weber’s Der Freischütz. More often, however, melodrama denotes a composition for speaking voice and piano. There are examples of such pieces by Schubert and Schumann