Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda
Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda arrives at Palazzo Bentivoglio in Gualtieri.
Sunday, January 25, 2026
3:00 PM and 5:00 PM
The Fondazione Museo Antonio Ligabue has a dream: to transform the Salone dei Giganti of Palazzo Bentivoglio into a living theatre. More than that, it envisions the frescoes depicting scenes from Gerusalemme liberata by Torquato Tasso coming to life through the dance of Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, curated by the Centro Coreografico Nazionale / Aterballetto.
This is not just a performance. It is a one-of-a-kind site-specific event. The Sala dei Giganti houses the very frescoes that narrate the tragic duel between Tancredi and Clorinda. Painted art and performing art will face each other directly.
Myth will become flesh, breath, and movement.
Would you like to help make this ambitious dream a reality and become part of the myth?
Join the crowdfunding campaign here!
https://youtu.be/mjZQdcn1fgc
The theme of love overwhelmed by war and death, inspired by the story of Tancredi and Clorinda as told by Torquato Tasso in Gerusalemme Liberata (whose 450th anniversary of its first draft falls in 2025) and set to music by Claudio Monteverdi (1624), retains a striking relevance today.
The CCN/Aterballetto interprets this legacy through dance—its privileged language for conveying the work’s intensity and dramatic power—in a performance created by Fabio Cherstich and Philippe Kratz, performed by dancers Alessia Giacomelli and Kiran Gezels, tenor Matteo Straffi, and harpsichordist Deniel Perer.
The performance is preceded and followed by talks by Antonio Audino, theatre critic and journalist for Radio Rai 3, who, with his characteristic clarity, will cast a contemporary light on what are considered “sacred texts” of Italy’s cultural heritage.
Direction and visuals: Fabio Cherstich
Choreography and stage movement: Philippe Kratz
Music: Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda by Claudio Monteverdi
Dancers: Alessia Giacomelli, Kiran Gezels
Singer (tenor): Matteo Straffi
Harpsichord: Deniel Perer
Co-production: Fondazione Nazionale della Danza / Aterballetto, Teatro Regio di Parma / Festival Verdi, Torinodanza Festival – Teatro Stabile di Torino – Teatro Nazionale, GhislieriMusica – Centro di Musica Antica
Premiered in September 2024, Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda is a project aimed at enhancing live performance activities within cultural institutions and heritage sites, promoted by the Directorate General for Museums and co-funded by the Directorate General for Performing Arts.
For the realization of the project, the National Museums of Perugia – Regional Directorate of National Museums of Umbria—and in particular the National Archaeological Museum and Roman Theatre of Spoleto—established, with the support of the Directorate General for Museums, a partnership shared with five other major cultural sites: Villa Pisani in Stra, the Castle and Park of Racconigi, the Castello Svevo in Bari, the Certosa di San Martino in Naples, and the Archaeological Park of Venosa.
Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome later joined the project, hosting the initiative as part of the summer program Sotto l’angelo di Castello 2024.
The project is part of Italia Danza, a co-designed initiative by the Directorate General for Public and Cultural Diplomacy of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAECI) and CCN/Aterballetto, aimed at promoting Italy’s artistic heritage abroad.
In my vision of Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, I imagine a confined, circular space, where the proximity and resemblance of bodies play a fundamental role. Together with choreographer Philippe Kratz, we explore the idea of bodies as mirrors, thus narrating an humanity struggling against itself. Eros and Thanatos emerge as equally powerful forces, creating a paradoxical atmosphere in this perfectly balanced struggle between human beings.
In our vision, Tancredi and Clorinda are contemporary warriors, indissolubly bound to one another, forced to fight and to enact a story that has already been written.
A single voice brings three characters to life: the text itself, Tancredi, and Clorinda merge into the body and sound of a single singer. This estranged sound, constrained within a circular path, creates a sense of constant repetition, underscoring the endless cycle of this story of love and death—tragically destined to repeat itself through the centuries and reach us today with all its force, as an emanation of the poetic power of Tasso’s words and the sublime music of Monteverdi.
Fabio Cherstich, Director
In Tasso’s narrative, set to music by Claudio Monteverdi, the most obvious themes are the struggle between woman and man and religious conversion. Yet these are also the aspects I find least intriguing: translating them into dance would risk reducing the work to a narrative of factual circumstances.
A more philosophical or psychoanalytic reading of this struggle—one from which both protagonists emerge defeated, deceived, and alone—appears far more compelling to me. Within the opposition of the two roles there already exists an entire world: seeking one another, confronting one another, and wounding one another. The dynamic is that of a warlike, conflictual ritual between two entities that draw closer. The absurdity of the act becomes evident when one of the two loses their life and we realize that the other, in any case, has not won… a deep, shared wound that remains on both bodies.
So are these two people fighting each other, or is it perhaps one person struggling with themselves?
Philippe Kratz, Choreographer
Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda
Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda arrives at Palazzo Bentivoglio in Gualtieri.
Sunday, January 25, 2026
3:00 PM and 5:00 PM
The Fondazione Museo Antonio Ligabue has a dream: to transform the Salone dei Giganti of Palazzo Bentivoglio into a living theatre. More than that, it envisions the frescoes depicting scenes from Gerusalemme liberata by Torquato Tasso coming to life through the dance of Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, curated by the Centro Coreografico Nazionale / Aterballetto.
This is not just a performance. It is a one-of-a-kind site-specific event. The Sala dei Giganti houses the very frescoes that narrate the tragic duel between Tancredi and Clorinda. Painted art and performing art will face each other directly.
Myth will become flesh, breath, and movement.
Would you like to help make this ambitious dream a reality and become part of the myth?
Join the crowdfunding campaign here!
https://youtu.be/mjZQdcn1fgc
The theme of love overwhelmed by war and death, inspired by the story of Tancredi and Clorinda as told by Torquato Tasso in Gerusalemme Liberata (whose 450th anniversary of its first draft falls in 2025) and set to music by Claudio Monteverdi (1624), retains a striking relevance today.
The CCN/Aterballetto interprets this legacy through dance—its privileged language for conveying the work’s intensity and dramatic power—in a performance created by Fabio Cherstich and Philippe Kratz, performed by dancers Alessia Giacomelli and Kiran Gezels, tenor Matteo Straffi, and harpsichordist Deniel Perer.
The performance is preceded and followed by talks by Antonio Audino, theatre critic and journalist for Radio Rai 3, who, with his characteristic clarity, will cast a contemporary light on what are considered “sacred texts” of Italy’s cultural heritage.
Direction and visuals: Fabio Cherstich
Choreography and stage movement: Philippe Kratz
Music: Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda by Claudio Monteverdi
Dancers: Alessia Giacomelli, Kiran Gezels
Singer (tenor): Matteo Straffi
Harpsichord: Deniel Perer
Co-production: Fondazione Nazionale della Danza / Aterballetto, Teatro Regio di Parma / Festival Verdi, Torinodanza Festival – Teatro Stabile di Torino – Teatro Nazionale, GhislieriMusica – Centro di Musica Antica
Premiered in September 2024, Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda is a project aimed at enhancing live performance activities within cultural institutions and heritage sites, promoted by the Directorate General for Museums and co-funded by the Directorate General for Performing Arts.
For the realization of the project, the National Museums of Perugia – Regional Directorate of National Museums of Umbria—and in particular the National Archaeological Museum and Roman Theatre of Spoleto—established, with the support of the Directorate General for Museums, a partnership shared with five other major cultural sites: Villa Pisani in Stra, the Castle and Park of Racconigi, the Castello Svevo in Bari, the Certosa di San Martino in Naples, and the Archaeological Park of Venosa.
Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome later joined the project, hosting the initiative as part of the summer program Sotto l’angelo di Castello 2024.
The project is part of Italia Danza, a co-designed initiative by the Directorate General for Public and Cultural Diplomacy of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAECI) and CCN/Aterballetto, aimed at promoting Italy’s artistic heritage abroad.
In my vision of Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, I imagine a confined, circular space, where the proximity and resemblance of bodies play a fundamental role. Together with choreographer Philippe Kratz, we explore the idea of bodies as mirrors, thus narrating an humanity struggling against itself. Eros and Thanatos emerge as equally powerful forces, creating a paradoxical atmosphere in this perfectly balanced struggle between human beings.
In our vision, Tancredi and Clorinda are contemporary warriors, indissolubly bound to one another, forced to fight and to enact a story that has already been written.
A single voice brings three characters to life: the text itself, Tancredi, and Clorinda merge into the body and sound of a single singer. This estranged sound, constrained within a circular path, creates a sense of constant repetition, underscoring the endless cycle of this story of love and death—tragically destined to repeat itself through the centuries and reach us today with all its force, as an emanation of the poetic power of Tasso’s words and the sublime music of Monteverdi.
Fabio Cherstich, Director
In Tasso’s narrative, set to music by Claudio Monteverdi, the most obvious themes are the struggle between woman and man and religious conversion. Yet these are also the aspects I find least intriguing: translating them into dance would risk reducing the work to a narrative of factual circumstances.
A more philosophical or psychoanalytic reading of this struggle—one from which both protagonists emerge defeated, deceived, and alone—appears far more compelling to me. Within the opposition of the two roles there already exists an entire world: seeking one another, confronting one another, and wounding one another. The dynamic is that of a warlike, conflictual ritual between two entities that draw closer. The absurdity of the act becomes evident when one of the two loses their life and we realize that the other, in any case, has not won… a deep, shared wound that remains on both bodies.
So are these two people fighting each other, or is it perhaps one person struggling with themselves?
Philippe Kratz, Choreographer
