University Singers: Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Unicorn, the Gorgon, and the Manticore

Galvin Recital Hall, $6/4
Albert Pinsonneault, conductor; Hannah Dixon McConnell, graduate assistant conductor; Charles Foster, accompanist
Composer-librettist Gian Carlo Menotti’s brilliant choral-madrigal drama The Unicorn, the Gorgon, and the Manticore is part fable, part fantasy, and part autobiography. Written for nine instruments and chorus, the concert-length work is divided into twelve choral madrigals and seven instrumental interludes. The chorus acts as both narrator and individual characters in an unfolding drama about shallow and faddish townspeople, a strange man in a castle, and his three wondrous animal companions—which may also represent the three phases of Menotti’s life.