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The third and final film from the English Touring Opera archive is a dress rehearsal recording of a staging by James Conway of music by the prince-murderer-composer Carlo Gesualdo.

Tortured by his mortal love affairs and by his intense love for an absent God, Gesualdo was a striking original. Eight singers and eight players perform some of his most intense madrigals in a landscape of shadows and candlelight; between each number, they tell some of the story of Gesualdo and recite contemporary poetry and prose, giving a context for this complex and compelling art.

The performance was toured by English Touring Opera in 2018 as part of a triple bill of 17th century music, alongside Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and Giacamo Carissimi's oratorio Jonas.