Hathor Consort / Blažíková / Mields / Lischka

Compared to today, women in the early modern period were practically fighting a losing battle for a life as a professional musician away from a career as a singer. Around 1650, Barbara Strozzi, for example, was given the flattering nickname »The New Sappho« in Venice thanks to her beautiful singing voice and impressive compositions. But the single mother of four illegitimate children became the victim of envy and resentment, and her search for a permanent position was unsuccessful. »Quel misero Usignuolo« ('The Unhappy Nightingale'), the title of one of her very personal – almost autobiographical – madrigals to a text by her famous father Giulio, provides an insight into the vulnerable soul of a combative woman. Romina Lischka stages a musical portrait of this important baroque composer in five acts.