Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda in Toledo is the first performance of CCN/Aterballetto’s 2025–2026 season.
Puerta de Bisagra – Toledo, September 13, 2025 at 8:00 pm and 9:30 pm
With the support of the Italian Cultural Institute of Madrid, CCN/Aterballetto celebrates Spain’s Noche del Patrimonio with Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda.
The Puerta de Bisagra provides the majestic setting where the tale of love and death told by Torquato Tasso in Jerusalem Delivered (1575) and set to music by Claudio Monteverdi (1624) will come to life. The performance, created by Fabio Cherstich and Philippe Kratz, is interpreted by dancers Alessia Giacomelli and Kiran Gezels, tenor Matteo Straffi, and harpsichordist Deniel Perer.
https://youtu.be/mjZQdcn1fgc
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: 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
Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda is a project for the promotion of live performance in museums and cultural heritage sites, supported by the Directorate-General for Museums and co-financed by the Directorate-General for Performing Arts.
For the implementation 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, with the support of the Directorate-General for Museums, have established a partnership with five other major cultural sites: Villa Pisani in Stra, the Castle and Park of Racconigi, the Swabian Castle of Bari, the Certosa di San Martino in Naples, and the Archaeological Park of Venosa. In addition, Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome will host the initiative as part of the summer festival Sotto l’angelo di Castello.
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 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 proximity and the resemblance of bodies play a fundamental role. Together with choreographer Philippe Kratz, we explore the idea of bodies as mirrors, thus narrating a humanity in conflict with 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, compelled to fight and to enact a story already written.
A single voice will give life to three characters: the text itself, Tancredi, and Clorinda will merge into the body and sound of one singer. This estranged sound, constrained by a circular path, creates a sense of constant repetition, underlining the endless cycle of this story of love and death—destined, tragically, to repeat itself through the centuries and to reach us with all its force, as an emanation of Tasso’s poetic power and Monteverdi’s sublime music.
Fabio Cherstich, Director
In Tasso’s tale, set to music by Claudio Monteverdi, the most obvious themes are the struggle between man and woman and religious conversion, but these are also the aspects I find least intriguing: when adapted into dance, they risk becoming a mere narration of factual circumstances.
A more philosophical or psychoanalytic reading of this struggle—one from which both protagonists emerge defeated, deceived, and solitary—strikes me as far more compelling. Within the opposition of the two roles lies an entire world: the search for one another, the confrontation, the wounding of each other. The dynamic is that of a warlike, conflictual ritual between two entities drawing close. The absurdity of the act becomes clear when one of the two loses their life, and we realize that the other, in any case, has not won… a deep, shared wound remains, inscribed on both bodies. So, are they two people fighting one another, or perhaps one person struggling with themselves?
Philippe Kratz, Choreographer
