Madrigal dinners present evening in Spanish court Dec. 2-4
(Nov. 19, 2004)--The UTSA Department of Music presents "Olé: A Holiday Madrigal Dinner at the Spanish Court of Philip II, 1592" at 6:30 p.m. Dec. 2 and 7:30 p.m. Dec. 3-4 at the University Center Laurel Room (2.01.28) on the UTSA 1604 Campus.
The President's Madrigal Dinner Dec. 2 benefits music scholarships. Tickets are $125; call (210) 458-4129 for reservations. Tickets for the Dec. 3 and 4 performances benefiting voice students are $35 and $45; call (210) 458-4357 for reservations.
The madrigal dinners, in their 28th year at UTSA, include a play set to music accompanied by a holiday dinner. This year's production, directed by UTSA music faculty member John Silantien, is about a visitor from the New World who joins King Philip II for a Christmas feast in 1592 at the Alhambra palace. A contest pits the music, poetry and dance of Spain against that of England. The evening climaxes with a joust reenactment (juego de cañas) traditionally held in Spain during the Christmas season.
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RSS FeedsPictured from left to right are UTSA Madrigal Singers (top) David Davila and James Phillips, (middle) Jaime Ramirez and Yvette Garza and (bottom) Helena Hernandez and Stanley Moody.
A madrigal is a medieval poem set to music. A madrigal dinner is a re-creation of the Renaissance feasts held in the great baronial halls of England during the 12 days of Christmas. Those lucky enough to be guests at a feast were dazzled with pageantry, humor and large amounts of food accompanied by a mixture of sacred and secular music.
The royal court including a king and queen, court jesters, wandering minstrels, brass ensembles and mimes, often provides entertainment at modern feasts. Everything is in character during the feast with the performers in Renaissance costumes singing music from the period. Most madrigal dinners use a Renaissance "masque," or play, as the focus of the entertainment. The masque ties together the theme of the event, beginning with a welcome by the jester, continuing through short entertainments during the meal and culminating in the masque and a farewell.
For more information, contact Cindy Solis at (210) 458-5685.
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History of UTSA madrigal dinners
The UTSA Department of Music's annual madrigal dinners have become a San Antonio community tradition. Presented each December since 1976, the performances by the UTSA Madrigal Singers re-create an evening as it might have occurred in Elizabethan England.
Singing Renaissance madrigals, playing Renaissance instruments, dancing the pavanne and branle, reading Shakespearean verse and observing such traditions as the serving of wassail, flaming pudding and the boar's head, the students treat guests to a sumptuous meal and an evening of merry-making.
During the 1970s, the UTSA Madrigal Dinners were staged in the galleria area of the Humanities and Social Sciences Building. The format was that of a pageant, and brass players played ceremonial fanfares from the balcony areas. The events were mostly student directed. In 1980, Madrigal Singers director John Silantien moved the dinners to the more intimate theater-in-the-round setting of the Kiva in the Multidisciplinary Studies Building. The format became more that of a play than a pageant, and local professional actors joined the madrigal singers to play principal roles. In December 2003, the madrigal dinners moved to a new home in the University Center Laurel Room.
In 1982, Silantien departed from the tradition of re-creating an Elizabethan evening by changing the play's setting to Benjamin Franklin's Philadelphia, 1789. Costumes, music, dance and instruments were changed accordingly. Since then, the scene has alternated between a traditional Elizabethan setting and other historical periods such as an antebellum Southern plantation, a 1940s World War II radio broadcast, a Roaring 20s revue and others.
In 1991, a tradition was begun when UTSA President Samuel Kirkpatrick hosted a special president's performance of the dinner at the Institute of Texan Cultures. The president's madrigal dinner benefits music scholarships. In succeeding years, several venues were used for the president's dinner, including the Southwest School of Art and Craft, the Gunter Hotel and the Ft. Sam Houston Officers' Club. The university's silver anniversary was celebrated in 1994 with a madrigal dinner plot in which the sixteenth-century chancellor of Oxford University was mysteriously poisoned before the Christmas feast. Audience members were asked to offer opinions about who committed the deed.