L'Elisio, or Elysium

In collaboration with stage director Seb Harcombe and Welkin Theatre, Musica Antica perform extracts from Stefano Landi's La Morte d'Orfeo (1619), Luigi Rossi's Orfeo (1647) and Michelangelo Falvetti's Diluvio Universale (1682) alongside testimonies - surreal, humorous, and deeply moving - of people who have been awoken from comas or have been revived from other realms of unconsciousness.

​Following a surprise cardiac arrest, Seb spent time during his recovery at St Thomas' Hospital meeting fellow patients who had also spent periods in medically-induced comas. Many of their experiences were disarmingly entertaining, but always equally moving. The music complimenting these accounts is drawn from seventeenth century settings of myths involving the descent and return from the underworld or a brush with Death: darkly humourous and profound in equal measure.​

​Musica Antica is enormously grateful to the Rev'd Jim Craig, staff of Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital, and those who have shared their experiences with Seb, for making this performance possible.

​This event will finish at 8:45pm.