Il dono delle lacrime

Singing Recital

„The Gift of Tears“ is a profound spiritual experience in which uncontrollable tears arise during prayer, worship, or confession. It represents the softening of a "heart of stone," bringing healing and a deep union with God. It is considered a gift of the Holy Spirit that purifies and renews the soul.

In Western art, tears are represented primarily as an indispensable attribute of the repentant sinner. At the same time, the tears of the Virgin Mary are a constant theme, particularly in the cultural sphere of Spain and Portugal, where devotion to the Mater Dolorosa acquired special prominence.

These themes are naturally reflected in the music of the period. The musical representation of tears is characteristic of works that evoke not only the sufferings of Christ and the Virgin Mary, but also moments of grace and spiritual elevation. To express these affections, composers developed a rich vocabulary of rhetorical figures: chromaticism, dissonances, successions of suspensions, sinuous melodies, the expressive use of pauses, exquisite ornamentation, and many other devices.

Conceived as an intimate spiritual concert, our programme explores these themes through the lens of the Catholic world of Southern Europe—Italy, Spain, and Portugal. It brings together composers well known to audiences with others whose music, unfortunately and unjustly, remains too rarely heard in today's concert programmes, despite deserving equal appreciation.

Fernando Miguel Jalôto

ANA QUINTANS – soprano (Portugal)

FERNANDO MIGUEL JALÔTO – organ (Portugal)

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ANA QUINTANS

Ana Quintans was born in Lisbon and developed her artistic skills in many directions, taking her first steps in theatre and dance. After graduating in Sculpture from the Lisbon Faculty of Fine Arts, she studied singing at the Music Conservatory in Lisbon.

Devoting most of her work to the Baroque repertoire, Ana Quintans has collaborated with many leading Baroque orchestras, such as Les Arts Florissants, Il Complesso Barocco, Les Musiciens du Louvre, Le Poème Harmonique, Ensemble Pygmalion, Al Ayre Español, Cappella Mediterranea, Concerto de’ Cavalieri, Gli Angeli, Il Pomo d’Oro,.

Her operatic highlights include roles in Monteverdi’s “L’incoronazione di Poppea” at the Salzburger Festspiele, Teatro Real de Madrid, and Maggio Musicale Fiorentino; Lully’s “Atys” at the Grand Théâtre de Genève; Rameau’s “Hippolyte et Aricie” at Glyndebourne Festival; Rameau’s “Les Indes galantes” at Teatro alla Scala and Teatro Municipal de São Paulo; Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas” at Opéra de Rouen and the Théâtre Royal de Versailles; Cavalli’s “Egisto” at the Opéra Comique in Paris; Charpentier’s “David et Jonathas” at the Aix-en-Provence and Edinburgh Festivals, BAM in New York, and the Opéra Comique in Paris; Gluck’s “Orfeo ed Euridice” at the Salzburg Mozartwoche and Scottish Opera; Mozart’s “Così fan tutte” at Glyndebourne Festival; Handel’s “Serse”; Handel’s “Teseo”; Handel’s “Ariodante”; and Mozart’s “Die Zauberflöte” at TNSC in Lisbon.

She has collaborated with conductors such as Michel Corboz, Ivor Bolton, William Christie, Marc Minkowski, Alan Curtis, Vincent Dumestre, Leonardo García Alarcón, Enrico Onofri, Raphaël Pichon, Laurence Cummings, Francesco Corti, Riccardo Minasi.

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FERNANDO MIGUEL JALÔTO

Fernando Miguel Jalôto is a Portuguese musician specializing in historical keyboard instruments and in the musical repertoire of the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. He is the founder and artistic director of the Ludovice Ensemble, one of the most active Portuguese early music groups. In Portugal, hw is also a member of Ensemble Bonne Corde and the Real Câmara Baroque Orchestra. He has collaborated with specialized international ensembles such as Vox Luminis, Oltremontano, La Galanía, and Capilla Flamenca. He has performed at various festivals and in numerous concerts throughout Europe, as well as in Israel, China, Japan, and Brazil. As a maestro al cembalo, he is invited to conduct specialized international ensembles, such as the Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra and the Croatian Baroque Ensemble, as well as several Portuguese symphony orchestras. He has recorded around thirty albums for international music labels.

With his ensemble, Miguel has conducted some of the greatest Baroque masterpieces, including works by Monteverdi, Schütz, Lully, Bourgeois, Charpentier, A. Scarlatti, J. S. Bach, Purcell, Pasquini, Locke, Handel, and Rameau, as well as a great number of Portuguese Baroque works, often in their first modern performances.

Miguel studied harpsichord at the Royal Conservatoire The Hague. He also studied Baroque organ and clavichord with a grant from the Portuguese National Culture Centre. He holds a Master’s degree from the Universidade de Aveiro in Portugal, and a PhD in Musical Sciences/Historical Musicology from the Universidade Nova de Lisboa.