"Cantus Firmus" brings four women together on stage as they seek ways to protect a local Latvian bog endangered by a female oligarch’s plans to develop a spa in the middle of it. Within a richly layered musical composition, their concerns intertwine with questions about how much agency an individual can - and should - take when faced with what they perceive as a threat to the common good of others. Together, the women go in depth, navigating the world that is coming to an end before their eyes, searching for a line between conscious risk and motives fueled by personal needs and ego.
Cantus Firmus is a fixed melody drawn from pre-existing chants or hymns, traditionally used as the foundation for polyphonic church music during the Medieval and Renaissance eras. Serving as a consistent musical backbone, it provided a stable basis upon which other vocal lines could be composed, creating elaborate and harmonious musical structures shaped by the strict rules of polyphonic writing - structures that often sound strikingly otherworldly to modern ears. Historically, such music was typically sung by male monks in monasteries, as women’s voices were largely excluded from public church liturgies, contributing to a male-dominated musical canon. And yet, behind convent walls - freed from the obligations of noble duties and arranged marriages - women composed and performed intricate polyphonic works of their own, drawing on sacred texts, plainchant, and deep personal devotion, weaving freedom into places of silence and seclusion.
The performance is in Latvian with English subtitles.
Tickets for the performances can be purchased online or at Gertrude Street Theatre box office (Ģertrūdes Street 101a, courtyard house, 2nd floor). The box office is open on show days an hour before the performance.