Details
SJE Arts - St John the Evangelist Church
109A Iffley Road
Oxford
Oxfordshire
OX4 1EH
England
Programme
Clare Norburn – Unsung Heroine
Performers
The Telling
Programme Note
Clare Norburn soprano
Joy Smith harp
Giles Lewin vielle
With actress TBC
Natalie Rowland & Pitch Black Lighting lighting design
Unsung Heroine is the imagined history of troubadour Countess Beatriz de Dia (1140-1212). A blending of history and fiction, this intimate concert/play takes you back to the heady atmosphere of 12th century Provence with plaintive songs and foot-stomping medieval dances.
An actress plays the redoubtable Beatriz, a feisty woman troubadour, trapped in a loveless marriage. She meets fellow troubadour Raimbaut d’Aurenga and they embark on a passionate affair. But Beatriz has enemies at court and as summer moves to autumn and events spiral inevitably towards their conclusion, Beatriz channels her feelings into her song A Chantar, the only troubadour song by a woman, where both poetry and melody survived in notated form.