The Performer, Matteo Augello, Episode 3

What do Maria Callas, Lady Emma Hamilton, Electric music, and drag all have in common?

This week's guest is an ex-colleague of mine, Italian but based in London, he is a performer, a lecturer of cultural studies, collaborator with the Victoria & Albert Museum in London,  and someone who has worked for the Royal Opera House in London the BBC, and the American Ballet Theatre in NYC.

He describes himself as a performance artist who uses his body as a research tool,  and whose aim is to tell stories from the past that he finds fascinating and which he believes are still relevant today.

From performing The Art of the Prima Donna, at the V&A which talks about the history of female opera singers,  to his electropastiche interpretation of some of Donizetti's most famous arias, where together with musician Jo Pedrali, they merge opera with electronic music, in essence updating the meaning of operatic and creating a contemporary suite that can be equally played at a rave or performed in a 17th C theatre, and all interpreted through a performance of sound, movement, and drag.

Today I catch up  with him to discover more about his work and about two new projects he is working on such a soundscape performance celebrating the anniversary of the birth of Caravaggio and reconstructing the choreographies of the Attitudes of Lady Emma Hamilton,

I welcome today's guest, Matteo Augello.

Watch Matteo perform the 'Udite, udite: Requiem per Elisabetta' during the Donizetti Night in Bergamo.

https://vimeo.com/370186564?fbclid=IwAR1z-GGIi59A0tDou-vxKNr5-Y3vZYFUc1LkWUPMGklpjYEUsTSUp7XwthQ

Watch Matteo's lecture-performance, 'The Art of the Prima Donna',  commissioned by the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Matteo retraces four centuries of opera by telling the stories of four great operatic divas: Anna Renzi, Francesca Cuzzoni, Giuditta Pasta, and Maria Callas. 

https://vimeo.com/367609260

Editing: @sscsierra

Music: @gulasound